Source: Talk Li Talk Outside

Today, we will continue to have a casual chat about some market news:

1. Is Binance starting to sell off its company reserve assets?

Last night (February 10th), someone forwarded me a post saying that by monitoring the Proof of Reserves data on the Binance (hereinafter referred to as BN) website, they found that BN seems to be withdrawing a large amount of assets from its company reserves recently.

And this morning, I found that some of my partners in the group were also discussing this topic, and they had different views. For example, some partners said that the Proof of Reserves is not held by the BN company itself, and the data posted on the website does not match the historical data on the website.

But anyway, this seems to be a good "news" that can keep BN in the headlines, and KOLs, media, and self-media can also bring traffic and topics. So, what has been said on the internet?

Next, let's simply reconstruct this event and the related issues for everyone:

For example, according to the snapshot as of December 2024, BN reported a net non-customer balance (BN wallet balance - net customer balance) of 46,896 BTC, 2,989,902,855 USDT, 216,312 ETH, 5,839,372 BNB, and 442,234 SOL.

But by February 1 this year, the balance had changed to 2,747 BTC, 2,757,258 USDT, 0 ETH, 4,869,720 BNB, and 4,179 SOL.

If we calculate BN's total reserves, it will be found that in the past month alone, BN has stripped about $8 billion in assets from its $14 billion company reserves, but the overall reserves are still able to meet a 100% Ratio.

So why is BN concentrating on stripping a large amount of its company reserve assets? Some people have speculated on the following possible reasons:

1) Continue to pay fines to the US government

Previously, BN was accused by the US Department of Justice of violating sanctions and remittance laws, resulting in CZ going to jail for a while and paying a $4.3 billion fine. But so far, it is said that they have only paid half of the fine, and there is still $2.2 billion to be paid to the US government.

2) Repay FTX creditors

In November 2024, the bankrupt FTX sued BN and CZ (the founder of BN), seeking to recover $1.8 billion in the stock buyback. I haven't found the latest court ruling yet, and it's not entirely clear whether this $1.8 billion will be compensated, but this is also a potential expense for BN.

3) Dealing with new regulatory issues, need to continue to spend money to buy peace

4) Need to spend money on investments or expand business operations

In addition to the above speculations, there are also various different opinions circulating on the internet, and perhaps there are some reasons we don't know about. For example, some say that Binance is making a provision for profits at the beginning of the year. Specifically, we can't continue to speculate, and perhaps the official personnel will come out to explain or "refute" it in the next few days.

But speaking of which, Binance's online reputation has indeed started to become worse and worse recently. Various listing storms, internal employee front-running (such as the TST token incident in the past two days, where it is said that more than a dozen internal wallets were found to be involved and made profits of over $1 million), give people the feeling that they are becoming more and more greedy and have no bottom line. Even CZ couldn't help but publicly criticize BN's token listing process, as shown in the image below.

But overall, BN's asset reserves are still maintaining a 100% Ratio and are relatively healthy in terms of asset security compared to those second- and third-tier small exchanges. Including some of my own assets are also in it.

In any case, I hope BN doesn't become the next FTX, otherwise it will cause a relatively large short-term black swan shock to this field.

2. Is a new Altcoin season coming?

Nowadays, anyone who dares to bring up the topic of Altcoin season will be despised by some people, because everyone's mood has generally fallen into pessimism, especially those who are trapped in Altcoins.

To avoid being scolded too badly, it is suggested that you can first search for the keyword "Altcoin season" in the public account to understand the previous Altcoin topic series articles we have published. Based on the comprehensive views in these articles, look at the following content, and maybe I won't be scolded too badly.

In the article a few days ago (February 9th), we mentioned that many projects are currently accelerating their TGE, which is similar to the sentiment around September and October last year. I don't know if history will repeat itself... as shown in the image below.

If (note, this is just an "if") history repeats itself, then we may see the revival of certain hot sectors in the near future, such as the AI sector and the MEME sector may be the first to see a rebound. But which sector will lead the rebound, we cannot predict.

As for whether it will be a real effective rebound, entering a new round of short-term Altcoin season, or just a flash in the pan and continue to sideways, we also cannot predict. But for the market performance in the first quarter to the second quarter of this year, I still maintain my previous view that the market has the probability to see a new round of short-term opportunities.

For example, from the overall weekly trend of TOTAL2, we seem to be at a relatively critical position at the moment, as shown in the image below (note the comparison of the two crossings).

In addition to some technical indicators, there are also the catalysts we have sorted out in previous articles, such as the US government's friendly policies towards cryptocurrencies, the upgrade of Ethereum, the approval of more Altcoin ETFs, and the Fed's expected rate cut in June... and so on.

In short, at the current stage, whether from the technical, news, or sentiment perspective, it seems to be in a state of hesitation, and this state often also indicates that we may be about to usher in greater volatility. Remember our previous saying: the market is often born in despair, erupted in divergence, and ended in madness.

But it also needs to be kindly reminded that if there is another opportunity for Altcoin rebound (which also means that the market may enter a larger volatility stage), it is recommended to withdraw in batches in an orderly manner, do not cling to it, and do not chase the highs again. Strictly manage your positions according to your own risk preferences, as this may be one of the best opportunities to withdraw for the rest of the year.

As for whether there will be another wave of larger market by the end of the year, or whether the market will enter a bear market next year (2026), or whether the market will break the existing cycle rules and enter a slow bull or long bull market... these questions we cannot accurately answer and predict, we can only take it step by step.

Continue to maintain optimism and patience, while maintaining a sense of crisis. Ordinary people should also try to stay away from leverage and contracts.

That's all we'll talk about today.