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BNB (BNB)

BNB (BNB)

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“Build & Build” – More Than Just Another Exchange-Based Cryptocurrency.

BNB (BNB) Fact Sheet

  • BNB (BNB) is the native cryptocurrency designed to power the Binance global ecosystem based on their proprietary blockchain BNB Smart Chain.
  • BNB was created in June of 2017 as “Binance Coin” on Binance Chain and followed the ERC-20 token standard since it was built on Ethereum (ETH).
  • In April 2019, Binance launched its own blockchain network, now known as the BNB Beacon Chain, where BNB became the native token and no longer required Ethereum's back-end.
  • Binance Chain was rebranded to the BNB Beacon Chain, the Binance Smart Chain was rebranded to the BNB Smart Chain, and Binance Coin is now simply named BNB, where BNB stands for "Build and Build."
  • The BNB Smart Chain is an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible network. It utilizes a consensus mechanism known as Proof-of-Staked Authority (PoSA), and within this system, BNB is used for the process of delegated staking on the authority validator.
  • BNB has a multitude of different use-cases, both on the blockchain and the Binance cryptocurrency exchange, where users can receive additional discounts on the fees, access payments on third-party services, or even participate within the Binance Launchpad.

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BNB Historical Data Price Chart in U.S. Dollars (USD)


BNB Historical Data Price Chart in the U.S. Dollars (USD). Source: TradingView

What is BNB (BNB)?

BNB (BNB) is the native cryptocurrency designed to power the Binance global digital asset exchange ecosystem based on their proprietary blockchain BNB Smart Chain.

To truly comprehend BNB, let’s first go over its rebranding history so we can have a clearer perspective on how it ties together.

BNB used to be called Binance Coin. However, the company decided to rebrand it to just BNB, which was initially its ticker symbol on crypto exchanges.

On February 15, 2022, the entire ecosystem surrounding the BNB cryptocurrency underwent a rebranding process, as showcased here:

  • Binance Chain was rebranded to BNB Beacon Chain.
  • Binance Smart Chain was rebranded to BNB Smart Chain.

The BNB Smart Chain is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and supports the execution of smart contracts. It fills any role without developers needing to re-learn a new programming language or do something specific to make them compatible within the BNB ecosystem.

Binance is a global cryptocurrency exchange that allows users to buy, sell, and trade hundreds of cryptocurrencies. It was originally launched in July 2017 by Chinese-Canadian entrepreneur Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, on various social media channels.

Binance features two blockchain networks, alongside many financial services and products, such as crypto loans, a crypto credit card, liquidity mining, fan token farming, and many more, all of which are accessible through their main website or app.

Binance initially created the BNB cryptocurrency on the Ethereum blockchain by ERC-20 token standard but eventually built its proprietary blockchain, so it was moved to be native there.

The initial use-case for the BNB cryptocurrency, just like any other exchange-based native token, was to simply let users get discounts on the trading fees on the Binance exchange. But as the Binance ecosystem evolved and introduced new products, so did the utility of the BNB token enhanced as well.

The BNB Beacon Chain is the native blockchain of the Binance Platform and was created to enable fast and permissionless trading. The technology behind it includes a fork of Tendermint’s Cosmos SDK. It originally went live for the very first time on April 23, 2019.

By design, the BNB Beacon Chain enabled high transaction speed and instant finality. However, it lacked programmability and flexibility initially. For these reasons, Binance launched a new chain known as the BNB Smart Chain on September 1, 2020. The goal of this second chain was to enable an alternative, user-friendly, smart-contract-enabled platform which could help developers build decentralized applications (dApps).

The BNB Smart Chain features a 30-second block time, the Proof-of-Authority (PoA) consensus mechanism, and low average transaction fees.

By taking advantage of this dual-blockchain system, each user was presented with the opportunity to utilize the fast transfers and trading fees within the BNB Beacon Chain but also gained access to the smart contract functionality and EVM-compatible programmability within the BNB Smart Chain.

Binance has been around for a long time, launching a decentralized exchange (DEX) and a peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto trading platform, among many other products.

How is BNB (BNB) Used?

The BNB cryptocurrency can be utilized in numerous ways. As the Binance platform evolves, the chances are high that we might see the BNB cryptocurrency find even more utility use cases.

When we take a look at its use-cases that are tied explicitly to the Binance platform, with BNB, you can:

  • Save 25% on Spot Trading Fees;
  • Save 25% on Margin Trading Fees;
  • Save 10% on Futures Trading Fees;
  • Stake BNB and earn rewards in the BNB Vault;
  • Gain exclusive access to token sales on the Binance Launchpad;
  • Send and receive payments with Binance Pay;
  • Get up to 40% commissions through the Binance Referral Program;
  • Earn flexible percentage yield through depositing BNB on BNB Chain Projects.

Use-Cases of BNB (BNB)

As of June 29, 2022, BNB is the number 5 largest cryptocurrency in market capitalization, and for a good reason.

Specifically, the BNB cryptocurrency can be traded for other cryptocurrencies on various exchanges. If used on the Binance exchange, BNB can be used for the payment of transactions, where users can receive discounts for doing so.

BNB can also be used as a form of payment for various credit cards that support cryptocurrencies, typically debit Visa cards issued by crypto exchanges.

Merchants can offer the BNB cryptocurrency as a means of payment for customers as additional flexibility in payment methods.

Many online booking services supporting crypto payments allow BNB to book hotels and flights, specifically where cryptocurrencies are available as a payment option.

Several platforms let users invest in stocks, ETFs, and other assets through the utilization of BNB, and you can even use the BNB cryptocurrency as collateral for loans.

Usability & Primary Features of BNB (BNB)

Throughout its years within the crypto space, BNB cryptocurrency has evolved to include a variety of different features to make it differentiate itself from other projects.

BNB Beacon Chain is a blockchain network with many unique features, such as recording account balances. Each balance can be comprised of 3 different parts, including locked, frozen, and available, which gets recorded on all accounts.

The network can also represent how much fees were paid within a specific block and provide information about tokens, alongside their status. There is also a list of all the trading pairs available on the Binance decentralized exchange (DEX), as well as the governance information surrounding the validators, governance mechanism, and the blockchain.

The BNB Smart Chain supports a communication protocol built on the Cosmos SDK. As a result, any BEP-2 token can be migrated between the BNB Smart Chain and the BNB Beacon Chain, making them interoperable with one another without the reliance on a third party.

Protocol

In the cross-chain transfer system utilized for BNB, there is an oracle relayer, where every validator has to run an oracle relayer that monitors the blockchain state changes. Whenever a cross-chain communication package gets submitted, each validator's role is to present a vote for a request. When a voting majority is achieved, cross-chain actions can be performed.

A key feature of BNB is the BEP-2 token standard. BEP-2 is a technical standard that refers to issuing and implementing tokens within the BNB Beacon Chain. Each BEP-2 token needs to include specific information, including the source address, the token name, the symbol, the total supply, and a mintable trait. These rules are followed within the Binance ecosystem.

Furthermore, the BNB cryptocurrency in this instance would also be used as a gas fee on the blockchain, and get used for the transaction fee, issuance costs for new assets, minting and burning fees, and trading fees.

Ledger

To comprehend how the BNB ledger works, we will review the BNB Smart Chain. The consensus algorithm utilized here is Proof-of-Staked-Authority “Parlia,” built on a network of validators and delegators, all of whom vote for validators.

Within this chain, any party is allowed to become a validator. However, they are required to meet specific demands.

These include hardware requirements to run the network, their own keys' management, and a high uptime guarantee. They also need to own and stake at least 20,000 BNB cryptocurrencies.

The validators within this network receive network fees as a reward for working towards validating new blocks.

Smart-Contract Support

The BNB Smart Chain supports smart contracts because it is fully compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Experienced developers who might have previously done work on the Ethereum blockchain can utilize languages such as Vyper or Solidity to write a set of smart contracts and compile them into bytecode, after which they can deploy them on the virtual machine.

This software stack enables an easy development cycle and way to bring Ethereum-based decentralized applications (dApps) to the BNB Smart Chain to take advantage of its various improvements and the broader ecosystem.

Tokenomics & Supply Distribution

The total supply of BNB was defined at 200,000,000 coins; however, the supply has gradually decreased over time due to the regular coin-burn events.

At the token sale, 100,000,000 BNB were initially offered, representing 50% of the total supply. BNB was originally issued as an ERC-20-based cryptocurrency, developed on Ethereum, before moving towards the BNB Beacon Chain.

Binance burns BNB based on its overall revenue every three months. The supply of BNB regularly decreases, which leads to an increase in its scarcity and overall value.

Team & History

The founder, creator, and CEO of Binance is Chinese-Canadian entrepreneur Changpeng Zhao.

Before creating Binance, he founded a company known as Fusion Systems in 2005 in Shanghai. The company filled the role of creating high-frequency trading systems for stock brokers.

In 2013, Changpeng Zhao joined Blockchain.com (formerly Blockchain.info) as the third team member.

Throughout his years in the crypto industry, he worked as the CTO of OKCoin for less than a year.

Then, he founded Binance in China. However, it had to move its servers and headquarters from China to Japan because the Chinese government banned cryptocurrency trading in September of 2017.

Activities & Community

Binance releases all of its news and updates directly on the Binance company blog, and it's the best source to follow for updates on the Binance ecosystem and BNB cryptocurrency development.

Looking at the community of Binance, on the official Binance Twitter, there are over 9.1 million followers. On the Binance Discord, they have a total of over 87k members. Binance has over 1,15 million likes on its page on Facebook and 2.7 million followers on its Instagram page.

Overall, Binance has a strong, healthy, and active community that is engaged across all of its activities on social media channels.

Development Activity and GitHub Repositories

On June 29, 2022, Binance launched a dual investment auto-compound feature and dual investment products. This development aims to enable users to buy low and sell high products at their selected price and date in the future, without any fees.

The company also introduced a funding rate arbitrage table in the Binance Futures product that gives users access to arbitrage information about Perpetual Futures Contracts and their spot equivalents.

There are consistent new developments and features implemented across Binance.

When we look at Binance GitHub repositories, there are 24 repositories.

However, four of them are pinned and of specific interest, including:

  • Binance-spot-API-docs – official documentation for the Binance APIs and streams.
  • Binance-API-postman – access to Postman, an API collaboration platform.
  • Binance-public-data – the Binance public data, including all Kline, Trade, and AggTrade data for all pairs, month by month, online.
  • Binance-connector-python – a lightweight Python library that works as a connector to Binance public API.

On-Chain Activity

According to data from YCharts, Binance has an average of 3.94 million transactions daily.


Binance Smart Chain Transactions Per Day. Source: YCharts

Etherscan’s BscScan blockchain explorer is one of the most prominent and most utilized BNB Smart Chain explorers.

The BNB market cap on BSC is $4,978,437,951.00, and there is a med gas price of 5 Gwei or $0.02.


The BNB Smart Chain Explorer. Source: BscScan

We can also see 171,277,912 total distinct addresses, with a daily increase of 221,945 as of June 29, 2022.


BNB Smart Chain Unique Addresses Chart. Source: BscScan

Activities and Partners

There is an ever-growing list of ways users can utilize BNB through partners and supported services. Numerous businesses can integrate BNB into their products; however, some of the most popular and most prominent companies that have done so include:

  • Pundi X - a platform created to help retail businesses transform with its blockchain-based POS solution.
  • Travala - a platform for hotel and accommodation booking that covers over 500,000 properties on a global scale with crypto payments support.
  • TravelbyBit - an online travel booking platform that is built for blockchain integration.
  • Decentraland - a 3D virtual world built on Ethereum that aims to incentivize a network of users on a global scale to operate a shared world.
  • AAVE (previously ETHLend) - a decentralized, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform that uses smart contracts.
  • Nexo - a platform for instant crypto loans that provides fast access to cash as well as support for the maintenance of the digital assets a user has.

It is important to note that Binance announces and implements integrations with various partners almost daily. As such, the list of partnerships and integrations is ever-growing.

References & Reports

References

Market Research

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