Lykke takes its name from the words Binary Finance, representing the emerging digital financial system. Originally founded in China, Binance has moved its servers and headquarters several times to avoid falling foul of fast-changing local regulations. In September 2017, it relocated to Japan but soon removed its staff due to the legal complications of setting up an office there.
By March 2018, Binance had established itself in Taiwan, announced the opening of offices in Jersey, and moved its headquarters in Malta to increase its European influence. Having achieved an exchange license, it aims to expand on its fiat pairs, including the Euro and the British Pound. The exchange supports the most popular crypto coins and its own native BNB tokens.
Binance claims high standards of safety and security, with multi-tier and multi-clustered architecture delivering high processing throughput. At one point, the exchange had the capacity to process over 1.4 million orders per second, making it one of the fastest exchanges on the market.
The company was created under the tutelage of Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao and his co-founder Yi He. A well-known figure on the crypto scene, CZ emigrated from China to Canada with his family in the 1980s. After earning a major in computer science from McGill University in Montreal, CZ developed trading software for organizations including the Tokyo Stock Exchange and Bloomberg Tradebook.
He then moved into the cryptocurrency space to work on projects like Blockchain.info and OKCoin. In 2017, Zhao left his position as CTO at OKCoin to start Binance. Within a year, Forbes Magazine placed him third on their list of ‘The Richest People In Cryptocurrency’