Abu Dhabi’s MGX is ploughing $2bn into Binance in one of the digital asset industry’s largest-ever deals and the first institutional investment into the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange.
The minority stake would be paid for in stablecoins, Binance and MGX said on Wednesday, although they declined to identify which they would use. Stablecoins are a type of digital cash, designed to hold a constant value per coin and are typically pegged to a sovereign currency like the dollar.
Oil-rich Abu Dhabi opened the artificial intelligence-focused MGX fund last year to fuel its ambitions to use AI to diversify its economy. In September it partnered with asset manager BlackRock and Microsoft to launch a more than $30bn AI fund. MGX is chaired by the UAE’s powerful national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who is spearheading the Gulf state’s AI efforts.