Binance Coin (BNB) breaks record: Signals a stronger bull market?

Binance Coin (BNB) rallied to a record above $707, and active trading volumes signaled that the trend may continue. BNB rallied from a recent flat performance of around $580. BNB now enters the price discovery zone, expecting a trek to four-digit prices.

Binance and its ecosystem remained important in 2024 as the bull market revived DeFi and other use cases. As a base asset for trading pairs and liquidity pools, BNB reflected the new money inflows and grew its value. Open interest in BNB grew in the past 24 hours and has doubled since June 3.

The importance of Binance as a centralized exchange and BSC as a decentralized platform means BNB can signal an extension of the 2024 bull market. BNB has been the leader in past market rallies, outperforming other altcoins. The price expansion for BNB has sparked hopes of reaching four-digit prices as it enters a price discovery phase. 

BNB rallied just a day after CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao effectively began his four-month sentence. 

The recent rally comes after months of sideways movement, which even led to the deeming of BNB a dead token. The slide of use cases, including DeFi and Web3, also affected the network’s usage. 

BNB also saw support above $200 and built up a reputation of a relatively stable asset. There are indications of BNB support with BTC reserves, which help the liquidity across all Binance markets.

Binance expands locked value

A convincing performance of BNB also means all DeFi features are now safer and have more valuable collateral. Binance Smart Chain now carries $5.8B in total value locked. However, the DeFi sector has yet to recover its peak value above $21B.

The current value locked on BSC is the highest for the past two years. Pancake Swap alone carries more than $2B of that value. 

The centralized impact of Binance is much higher. Based on all its token listings, the exchange broke above $120B in value. The exchange is on track to complete two record quarters of value and activity, based not only on Bitcoin performance but also on altcoins and tokens. 

Also read: SEC Accuses Binance.US Of Crypto Mirage Trades – Decoding Wash Trading

Despite regulatory pressure from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Binance’s recent performance remains strong. 

Binance BSC tokens react to BNB peak

Binance is on track to change a few fundamentals in 2024. Binance Chain and Binance Smart Chain will merge from July onward after shutting down the beacon chain for centralized control.

Another significant change will affect the listing of new tokens. Binance will review new projects for significant holdings by venture capital backers. Instead, the exchange will aim to offer listings to projects that distribute most tokens to the community. 

The recent rally may also start affecting projects in the Binance ecosystem. Pancake Swap (CAKE) is already following BNB with its rally. 

CAKE traded at $3.13 after a recent low at $2.40. The asset is also key in forming liquidity pairs, but the rally depends on the CAKE/USDT pair on Binance.

The BNB rally also helped boost FLOKI, one of the meme token and Web3 projects on Binance Smart Chain. FLOKI expanded by 29.6% overnight, reaching $0.00033. 

Trust Wallet Token (TWT) also grew to $1.36, reaching a monthly peak at $1.38. TWT also expanded its volumes by more than 500% in the past day. 

During the most recent price rally, BSC daily active users remained at their usual level of around 330K wallets per day. Binance is competing with Solana and Ethereum to become one of the active chains for building new projects. For years, BSC has expanded its Web3 ecosystem, including NFT markets, DeFi, ownership, and the Trust wallet they acquired.

According to DappRadar, BSC has succeeded in this task by carrying 5,338 decentralized apps and nearly 80K smart contracts. With L2 scaling protocols, BSC has out-competed the Ethereum mainnet but not the entire Ethereum ecosystem. BSC aims to achieve good performance by managing validator nodes instead of depending on centralized consensus. 

Cryptopolitan reporting by Hristina Vasileva