Author: Deep Tide TechFlow

In 1606, the Netherlands issued the first stock in human history, and since then, a brand new form of public fundraising has created public value that the masses can share. Today, the $30 trillion Nvidia is a profound echo of this 400 years later.

Times have changed, and while the mainstream choice today remains the stock market, the vast majority of small countries are unable to participate. In contrast, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are more suitable for small countries to engage in the global mainstream asset pricing system. Far away, there is El Salvador, and nearby, Bhutan's government has officially participated in Bitcoin mining.

With Trump's return, the U.S. and several countries are attempting to establish cryptocurrency reserves beyond just BTC as a single currency and mining form. This is a first in human history, a role that has long belonged to precious metals like gold and silver and the U.S. dollar.

Coincidentally, CZ, who is making a comeback, also tweeted that Bhutan might include ETH and BNB in its reserves. Following this trend, on January 8, Bhutan's GMC officially included BNB along with BTC and ETH in its reserves. However, compared to the unique value of digital gold and "ETH is Money," what exactly does BNB represent?

BTC goes without saying; it has endowed cryptocurrency with value and is the source of its legitimacy. ETH has already proven its value through frequent purchases by retail investors and Trump. However, BNB's long-term value has been overshadowed by Binance, and its unique value in the on-chain ecosystem has long remained undiscovered.

Today, we will start with Binance and trace back through the long 8 years of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, the value contained within will influence the blockchain industry for decades to come.

Origin: BNB is Binance

In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin, opening the Eden of decentralized value for humanity. Like the founders of ancient civilizations, his identity remains obscure, yet his impact is profound. The most important aspect is its transactional nature, a form of peer-to-peer electronic currency that naturally aligns with value exchange.

Thus, the era of fierce competition began, with Binance and Coinbase being the most significant players. The former represents deep engagement in the on-chain ecosystem, viewing CEX as a stage towards free value, while the latter embraces the existing system and moves towards listing.

In 2017, Binance emerged as a rising star in the exchange system, announcing the role of BNB alongside the launch of the exchange. It can be said that Binance has been implementing token economics from the very beginning, embracing blockchain and tokens as its foundational memory.

If you look through Binance's white paper, beyond the usual focus on the exchange itself, it emphasizes the many roles of BNB, which can be divided into trading fee discounts and participation in platform governance. Among these, trading fee discounts primarily refer to the ability of platform token holders to enjoy fee discounts within different holding ranges, akin to growing together with the platform and sharing trading dividends.

Participation in platform governance mainly refers to the requirement of holding platform tokens or paying a certain amount of platform tokens as collateral when project parties apply for listing. Additionally, token holders can vote on project listing choices.

The price of platform tokens needs to be strongly controlled by the exchange itself, as the most basic source of platform token value. Besides this, there are also two main specific methods for implementation: a burning mechanism and expanding usage scenarios.

Beyond its basic functions, the BNB burning mechanism has been operating efficiently. Every quarter, Binance uses its profits to buy back BNB and burn it. Currently, the circulating supply of BNB is around 145 million, and at the current burn rate, it is expected to drop to 100 million in about four years.

For example, in the most recent quarterly burn on January 23, the BNB Foundation conducted its 30th quarterly burn, publicly burning 1,634,200.95 BNB, valued at approximately $1.16 billion.

More importantly, the value discovery of BNB is closely tied to Binance. From the Launchpad, which learned from traditional finance, to the industry-native Megadrop, Binance has consistently led the trend of crypto asset discovery and issuance.

Looking back, we can see that Binance launched the Binance Launchpad in 2019, creating a new form of cryptocurrency crowdfunding, known as IEO, which avoids on-chain disorder and fraud while providing "privileges" for BNB holders to participate in new projects.

In 2020, Binance followed up with the Launchpool, allowing users to stake BNB to earn new token rewards. When used in conjunction with the Launchpad, it maximizes the sharing of new token dividends.

By the end of 2024, Binance will have conducted 21 Launchpool activities, with a total locked amount reaching $1.53 billion and over 6.1 million participants.

On a historical scale, the ROI from Binance's new token offerings ranks first at 13 times, and BNB holders have also reaped significant rewards.

But this is not the end. How to better connect the on-chain ecosystem has become Binance's next focus. In 2024, Binance launched Megadrop, seamlessly integrating Binance's earning products with the Binance Web3 wallet, redefining the airdrop experience.

Binance selects projects, and these projects seek quality customers, with the scoring focus being the amount and duration of BNB locked. The longer the subscription period and the larger the subscription amount, the more points are earned.

However, this is still not proactive enough. Binance needs to actively engage with early projects, discovering alpha projects before they issue tokens or go public. Binance Alpha has officially launched, primarily operating within the Binance wallet, with a certain probability of being listed on the main Binance platform if it first appears on Binance Alpha.

Doing a good job in asset discovery and issuance, leading the trend of industry transformation, is Binance's original intention. During this time, there are also Binance financial products, creating a Binance wealth management system centered around BNB. Under the dual approach of capital preservation and high returns, BNB holders can choose from a variety of wealth management products and use BNB as principal to earn higher returns.

In addition to the abstract scenarios and architectures, the actual value of BNB is a concrete form of "pragmatism." We will use Solv Protocol as an example to illustrate the seamless flow of BNB within the Binance ecosystem. The correct approach to maximizing benefits is to deposit BNB into the Binance wallet and continue participating in on-chain staking and re-staking activities.

In matching the abstract with the concrete, Binance has maximized BNB's potential. However, it must be acknowledged that the existence of centralized exchanges is both a necessary path to freedom for humanity and a potential obstacle that can trap people. Different choices do not conflict; they are more about compromises based on time and place.

Humanity yearns for freedom and decentralization while also pursuing efficiency and security. However, the development of the real world is always slow and full of trade-offs. What lies before people is never a choice between freedom and unfreedom, decentralization and centralization, but rather the best choice among freedom, security, efficiency, and usability.

The choice of different path priorities has become each participant's unique odyssey.

Odyssey: BNB is BNB Chain

In the long seasons, the lonely traveler can only enter a framework-less and rule-less western world. The public chain war that began in 2021 saw exchanges join the fray, but only three and a half survived: BTC, ETH, and BNB Chain (then called BSC), along with half of Solana, which was locked in a fierce battle with ETH.

Now, the BNB public chain ecosystem, after its renaming from BSC, is collectively referred to as oneBNB, which includes BSC, opBNB, and the storage-focused GreenField.

BNB Chain is actually a very special product, distinct from the strategic alliances of Solana and FTX, and different from the self-entertainment of various exchange public chains. BNB Chain has indeed achieved all the characteristics that a public chain should have.

The Serious Side: AI First Chain

BNB is not merely backed by the Binance exchange, and neither is BNB Chain. More accurately, the BNB Chain ecosystem has a large number of on-chain users and transaction volume, as well as active developers.

In terms of on-chain transaction volume, BNB Chain and Tron are the only two public chains with real demand. Tron mainly serves the daily use of USDT, while BNB Chain is a new chain that keeps pace with the changing times.

BNB Chain currently has 5,607 DApps, nearly a million active addresses (UAW), and a DeFi TVL of $3.6 billion, with several metrics even leading Ethereum.

For instance, after CZ retweeted Magic Eden's announcement of its platform's new support for BNB Chain, ME briefly surged past $4.4, demonstrating the wealth effect of BNB Chain as always.

BNB Chain is also the leading DeFi market outside of ETH. In the BNB ecosystem, addressing urgent needs and thinking from the user's perspective has always been a working method. It is through the accumulation of the past few years that BNB Chain has defined its latest positioning: to become a public chain for the AI era.

From DeFi and NFTs to today's Meme and AI, BNB Chain has always been at the forefront of the times. Under the guidance of the AI First philosophy, BNB Chain is laying out three foundational projects needed for AI: computing power, data, and models, and based on this, launching new projects and new tokens to complete its business closed loop.

The most typical example is MyShell, an established AI Agent project. MyShell attracts a large number of users with its strong technical capabilities and has successfully been selected for the 2023 MVB Season 6 incubation program by BNBChain and Binance Labs.

Although memes have become strange, AI is very suitable for completion on-chain, such as using inexpensive labor for data labeling and completing wage payments with cryptocurrency. Additionally, BNB Chain's Greenfield can be used for storage, allowing everything to be completed within BNB Chain.

For example, DIN, a leading data labeling project in the BNB chain space, is comparable to the Web2 giant ScaleAI, and this project has already received investment from Binance Labs.

In 2025, BNB Chain will implement its established AI-first approach, empowering existing infrastructure throughout the various processes of AI circulation and creating the most active on-chain AI ecosystem.

A prosperous ecosystem is not a chaotic virtual fire but a unique value support based on its own advantages. According to on-chain data, BNB DEX trading volume has reached a three-year high, with weekly trading volume surpassing $17.74 billion.

For on-chain protocols and DApps based on BNB, there will be stronger value support. In the mutual promotion of token price and value, BNB has become a long-term value target.

The Lively Side: Happy-Sci & Desci

Competition in the on-chain ecosystem is not only a technological contest but also a battle for traffic. However, beyond technical terms like AI and public chains, BNB Chain is still exploring more possibilities.

For example, the Happy-Sci initiative, launched by Binance Labs researcher @cyodyssey, has sponsored 500 PhD students, providing them with small payments through Trustwallet to make their dull research lives more colorful.

During the operation of this project, rewards are distributed through BNB Chain. BNB Chain has received a lot of praise for its efficiency in supporting PhDs, not only because BNB Chain funded the project but also due to BNB's support for various assets, especially stablecoins. PhD students, residing in different regions, use various financial systems, and stablecoins maintain fairness in dollar valuation. With the high speed and low fees of BNB Chain, PhD students can directly receive payments within Binance or the Binance wallet. Whether using Binance Pay for consumption or converting to fiat currency, it saves significant time costs.

In addition to joyful research, the slightly more serious DeSci (decentralized science) has also formed a deep bond with CZ and BNB Chain. CZ has shown a keen interest in the research and application of DeSci and has supported the development of the project on multiple occasions.

Whether serious or playful, the development of BNB Chain is solid and powerful. It not only delves into underlying technologies but also continuously expands the wealth effect. PancakeSwap has evolved from DeFi Summer to now without falling into a high-open-low-walk pattern, while the popularity of platforms like Four also indicates that BNB Chain is always at the forefront of the times.

With one hand on traffic and the other on expertise, the future path of BNB Chain is a great revolution, guiding more people towards the path of freedom. Beyond trading and finance, BNB is also a deeply valued crypto asset. BNB is by no means limited to trading and Binance; the vast human world is a great space where BNB leaves its mark.

Great Revolution: BNB is Future

Throughout 2024, the price of BNB rose by 1.2 times, not only outperforming ETH's 46% but also slightly surpassing BTC's 1.19 times, making it the most significant increase among the top ten mainstream cryptocurrencies.

Although BTC and ETH remain the world's understanding of the concept of Web3, Binance is indispensable in the journey of pushing the crypto world towards the mainstream. Binance can be seen as a gateway and a novice village; only through trials can one enter the on-chain dark forest.

On the road to the mainstream, BNB must not be absent. It can be understood as the viewfinder of a camera, examining the on-chain world from a micro perspective, the existing strength of CEX from a medium perspective, and the macro trend of government cryptocurrency reserves from a far perspective.

The three combine to forge multiple facets of BNB.

Currently, Binance has obtained compliance licenses in 20 jurisdictions. Beyond compliance, there is also the trust accumulated from users. Binance currently holds $20 billion in user deposits and insists on disclosing its reserve status (PoR). This trust has made Binance the first CEX in 2024 to surpass a total trading volume of $100 trillion.

Beyond trading, BNB Chain is also actively expanding its possibilities.

BNB is not just a cryptocurrency; it is an important tool for connecting global users, promoting financial inclusion, and driving technological innovation.

In the deep layout of BNB, off-chain consumption scenarios, especially payments based on stablecoins, will become an industry development trend by 2025. The average transaction fee for opBNB is $0.001, while for BSC, it is $0.03, making it particularly suitable for stablecoin consumption, with rates significantly lower than existing card organizations.

For example, Singapore's digital payment provider dtcpay has partnered with BNB Chain to accelerate the practical application of stablecoins. Companies using dtcpay can accept payments in stablecoins like USDT and USDC through the BNB chain network.

Looking back over the past eight years, BNB's journey has just begun. It is no longer a newborn cryptocurrency but is at a critical stage in the "puberty" of cryptocurrencies.

In 2017, Binance started as an exchange; in 2021, it began to delve into the on-chain ecosystem, with DeFi/NFT becoming practical tools; and in 2024, it is about AI, Meme, and DeSci.

The highest virtue is like water, BNB is formless.

Through the ups and downs of eight years, BNB has witnessed the evolution of the crypto industry from the wild west to a topic of serious discussion, from a niche group's toy to a widely recognized representative paradigm of new technology. However, there is ample reason to believe that today is still the early stage for BNB. The journey of crypto gaining mainstream recognition is not easy, and the medals will be awarded to all who persevere for it in the next eight years.