Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao says his cryptocurrency exchange is seeing increased 'institutional adoption'

• Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said in an interview on Thursday that institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies is accelerating.
• The CEO told Bloomberg that this is illustrated by much larger trades being made on the exchange.
• Zhao also said he is seeing buying patterns consistent with corporate treasuries entering the crypto market.

Binance's CEO Changpeng Zhao said he is seeing increased institutional adoption of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on his cryptocurrency exchange over the past few months.

Zhao founded Binance in 2017 and the platform quickly became the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world by trading volume. Binance boasts an average daily trading volume of $28.85 billion, according to data from Statista. For reference, the Nasdaq clocked $287 billion in volume on March 3.

The CEO said in an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday that he has seen "much higher uptake on institutional adoption" and "a lot more institutions coming in." He added that the buyers "typically trade much larger sizes."

Zhao also noted "the total size of the user base is growing very rapidly, especially in the last year" at Binance. Although the average size of the accounts on the platform remain relatively small, new investments from institutions are changing the makeup of accounts on the exchange.

On top of that, Zhao said he is seeing investments from "corporate treasury coming in" as well.

He said the corporate treasury buyers have "a very unique buying pattern. They buy over long periods of time, long meaning like weeks or months, and then they just buy and they don't sell."

The CEO said the pattern is "quite new" and "probably mostly promoted by Michael Saylor of MicroStrategy."

Michael Saylor, the CEO of the business intelligence firm MicroStrategy, has been one of bitcoin's main evangelists. Saylor acquired over $1 billion of bitcoin for his firm in a move that stirred controversy, but also brought more attention to the potential for coporate investments in crypto.

Saylor held a virtual conference called Bitcoin for Corporations on February 4 in a move he said was due to "popular demand."

According to Zhao, Saylor's move may have pushed more institutions into crypto, and data from JPMorgan backs up his beliefs. A survey carried out by the investment bank found that 22% of institutional investors at firms that don't currently trade in cryptocurrency believe their companies are likely to do so in the future.