BNB BNB
Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange with an average daily trading volume of over $74 billion. Founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao and He Yi it has quickly grown into a company that spans all areas of the crypto industry and has a huge number of users. Binance Coin (BNB) is the token launched by the Binance exchange as part of their decentralised network and is just one of several crypto functions the company offers.
In the early months of 2021, BNB saw a significant price increase, further cementing Binance as one of the main players in the crypto industry.
The Binance ecosystem includes the Binance Smart Chain, the Binance Academy, a trusted wallet and several research projects. Since launching the Binance Coin, the company has been able to attract more users and use the coin as a way to further drive funding for development of its many projects.
Initially, the Binance Coin was launched as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain however after Binance launched their own chain, they soon migrated BNB onto it. The Binance chain is facilitated by the tendermint byzantine-fault-tolerant (BFT) consensus mechanism.
Whilst the chain does not offer the same smart contract functionality of Ethereum it does offer increased scalability when compared to the proof-of-work consensus mechanism used by Bitcoin.
Binance coin is a dedicated utility coin for the Binance ecosystem and as such, adoption grows as usage of the exchange grows. Much of that growth has been from speculative projects built on BSC, prone to hacks and so-called rug-pulls, which has led to significant criticism.
The huge price correction in May 2021 saw BNB halve in value, and though it slowed interest in projects launched on BSC, there are still multiple new projects launched each day with no discernible purpose or use case.
Who is using BNB coin?
As an exchange, Binance has over 13.5 million users and is the largest exchange in the world. Much of these users have an interest in Binance Coin as Google Trends indicates that the past few months have seen the highest level of search interest for the coin. Following the launch of the coin as an ERC-20 there was a surge in interest.
This data however suggests that the decision to move the coin to the Binance chain was a popular one, as search interest in Binance Coin has peaked since.
Google trends also shows that Binance Coin has worldwide appeal, and countries such as Turkey and Nigeria have a strong showing. This makes sense given that Binance is the most popular crypto exchange globally and holding BNB is one the best ways to participate and support its decentralised ecosystem.
What is the size of the BNB network?
There are just under 155 billion circulating BNB in the ecosystem, and the coin has a current market cap of over $97 billion. Currently the coin ranks #3 on coinmarketcap.com making it one of the biggest players in crypto.
The max supply of BNB is set at just over 170 million coins with most of these - but not all - being created already with around 20 million coins set to be released into circulation in the future.
Initially 50% of the supply of the token was allocated to the ICO and public sale, with a further 40% being distributed amongst the Binance founders and team and the remaining 10% going to angel investors. This has meant that there is a relatively equal distribution of BNB.
The Binance Smart Chain is seeing a huge amount of usage, though relies on a surprisingly fee validators. This keeps fees down, and transactions fast, but at the cost of centralisation.
Given the ease of launching projects on BSC and the huge interest in DEFI, there is a concern that many display clear Ponzi qualities, with no development roadmap, visible team or meaningful differentiation.
What is the size of the BNB community?
The Binance community is one of the largest in crypto, with the exchange having over 13 million users. The official Binance Twitter account has a huge 3.2 million followers whilst the Reddit account has over 300,00 members.
That Twitter following is larger than Bitcoin and Ethereum followers put together so it’s clear to see that the Binance community is truly a key part of the industry.
How much BNB is traded?
BNB has a daily trading volume of over $4 billion with the biggest platform to trade it on of course being Binance. The most popular trading pairs for BNB are as follows: BNB/UDST BNB/BTC and BNB/ETH.