Binance Coin has had a stellar performance since the beginning of 2019. Up more than 315 percent since January 1. BNB has managed to surpass its former all-time high values from January 12th, 2018.
The First to Breach Former USD ATH
As Bitcoinist reported earlier this week, Binance Coin is one of the top performing cryptocurrencies, having a breakout year against Bitcoin.
BNB [coin_price coin=binance-coin] continues its surge not only against BTC, but also against the US dollar. The cryptocurrency managed to become the first one to soar past its former ATH value against the USD which was achieved back in January 2018 – right around the peak of 2017’s historic bull-run. Back then, BNB was trading at $24.46.
Against BTC, Binance Coin is also doing splendidly, again surging to another ATH.
At the time of this writing, BNB is up around 13 percent in the last 24 hours alone.
Reasons For BNB’s Surge
It’s safe to say that there is more than just one reason for BNB’s strong performance throughout 2019. So let’s take a look at a few of them.
Utility
Binance Coin’s main purpose was to allow traders to receive significant discounts on trading fees when using BNB to pay for them.
According to the official whitepaper, those who use BNB to pay their fees will receive a 50 percent discount in the first year, 25 percent in the second year, 12.5 percent in the 3rd year, and 6.75 percent in the fourth year. This applies to exchange fees, withdraw fees, listing fees, and any other fees on Binance.
BNB Burning
The initial supply of BNB was set to 200 million. However, the Malta-based exchange has said that it will be destroying the BNB equivalent of 20 percent of their quarterly profits until 50 percent of all coins are burned, leaving just 100 million BNB in circulation.
So far, there have been 7 quarterly burns, which have removed a total of 10,677,344 BNB from circulation.
- Initial Exchange Offerings
Binance was also the first cryptocurrency exchange to begin conducting initial exchange offerings (IEOs). Essentially, these are fundraising events where the exchange is selecting a certain project, issuing tokens through a dedicated platform and listing them immediately for trade once the IEO has finished.
The catch, however, is that you can only use the exchange’s native token to participate. Hence, those who wish to buy in an IEOs conducted by Binance would have to first buy BNB. Even more so, Binance has implemented a new rule which requires those who wish to participate to hold BNB for a minimum of 20 days prior to the event.
So far, Binance Launchpad has completed four IEOs, each one of which has ended in a few seconds with thousands of people lining up to take part.
Binance Chain
Another major development around Binance has been the recent launch of its mainnet for the decentralized exchange Binance Chain.
It created a serious hype in the cryptocurrency community, especially as every crypto that’s migrating to Binance Chain is pumping in price.
Changpeng Zhao
Community sentiment surely plays a role in the price of cryptocurrencies and it’s safe to say that the CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, is amongst the most prominent individuals out there.
Not only is he constantly outlining the achievements of Binance, as well as those of other projects which attribute to the overall adoption of cryptocurrencies, he also manages to appeal to many in the space. This became even more so after he came through with his promise that Binance would delist Bitcoin SV following the ongoing feud between Craig Wright and certain members of the community.
The above are just some of the reasons for the strong performance of BNB. However, with the Binance Chain token swap incoming in a few days, it’s interesting to see whether BNB will maintain its steady course upwards.
Is BNB leading the next market bull-run? Let us know in the comments below!
Images via Shutterstock, Bitcoinist archives
