By Will Canny, AI Boost

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has completed the final leg of its plan to convert the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) entirely into bitcoin BTC, closing out a $1 billion transition from stablecoin reserves into BTC.

The exchange purchased a final tranche of 4,545 BTC, bringing SAFU’s total holdings to 15,000 BTC, valued at roughly $1.005 billion at a bitcoin price of $67,000 at the time of completion, according to a post on X on Thursday.

The world's largest cryptocurrency was trading around $67,500 at publication time.

SAFU, established to protect users from losses caused by unforeseen events such as hacks, was originally backed by a mix of assets including stablecoins. Under the new framework, the fund is now fully denominated in bitcoin. Binance also pledged to replenish the reserve if its value drops below $800 million due to market volatility.

The 30-day transition was finalized within the timeline Binance set when it first announced the strategy shift. The move traces back to late January, when the exchange revealed it would convert $1 billion in dollar-pegged tokens held in SAFU into bitcoin, reinforcing its view of BTC as a long-term reserve asset.

A growing number of companies have begun adopting bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset in recent years, shifting portions of their treasuries from traditional fiat holdings into BTC. This trend reflects a broader institutional acceptance of bitcoin’s long-term store-of-value properties amid persistent inflationary pressures and low yields on conventional assets.

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Binance exchange took an early onchain step in that process on Feb. 2, transferring 1,315 BTC, worth roughly $100 million worth of bitcoin, from its hot wallets into SAFU. That transaction signaled the start of what would become one of the largest single treasury-style reallocations into bitcoin by a crypto exchange.

Binance said the fully bitcoin-backed SAFU underscores its confidence in BTC as the premier long-term reserve asset.

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Source: Coindesk