Analysis: Binance brought in $446 million in profits in 2018 despite the bear market

Binance CEO Changpeng 'CZ' Zhao told Bloomberg in early July that he expected the exchange's net profit to be between $500 million and $1 billion in 2018. However, based on The Block's calculations the firm was a bit shy of hitting the low-end of CZ's prediction, bringing in a total of $446 million.

To be sure, Binance doesn't disclose its financials, but the profits can actually be deduced fairly easily with some back-of-the-envelope math. From its ICO offering in 2017, Binance raised $15 million for 100 million Binance Coin (BNB) out of 200 million in total supply. As part of maintaining its coin, Binance uses 20% of its net profits to buy back BNB and eventually destroy 100 million BNB tokens, according to the whitepaper. After every BNB burning, Binance publishes a disclosure report.