Binance IEO's first major upgrade—have you stocked up enough BNB?
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Binance IEO's first major upgrade—have you stocked up enough BNB?
How does BNB, a platform token that enters the DeFi mining ecosystem through both the Binance CEX and Binance Smart Chain (BSC), further capture value?
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsOn September 29, 2020, Binance officially announced that Alpha Finance Lab would launch simultaneously on Binance Launchpad and the new coin mining platform (Launchpool). This project is a DeFi ecosystem built on both Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum, aiming to establish a decentralized lending platform.
Holders of BNB can now enjoy dual benefits from mining and IEO-style token allocation, no longer limited to earning new tokens solely through lottery-based allocations. This news further boosted the price of BNB, which saw a gain of over 21.6% in the past seven days as of 8 PM on September 29.
In the crypto world, a token’s price reflects the value capture and market expectations behind its underlying project or platform.
Take Ethereum—the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap today—as an example. Much of its rally in 2020 stemmed from its role as the gas currency for DeFi mining, while its surge in 2018 was largely driven by ICOs, underpinned by Ethereum's solid technology and mature community ecosystem.
According to data from CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko on September 29, Binance's native token BNB is the only exchange token among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, currently ranked 6th and reaching as high as 5th this month.
As a key representation of an exchange's intrinsic value and ecosystem boundaries, BNB’s value capture has expanded beyond just transaction fee discounts on Binance. Recent developments show it now draws continuous value inflows across diverse ecosystem applications, with DeFi being particularly crucial.
Now, how does BNB—positioned at the intersection of Binance’s centralized exchange (CEX) and Binance Smart Chain (BSC) within the DeFi mining landscape—further capture value?
Within Binance: Expanding BNB Use Cases
As the pioneer and leading player among exchange tokens, BNB’s original and most frequent use case has been up to 50% discount on trading fees. A research report once noted that given Binance leads globally in both spot and futures trading volume, the fee discount alone could justify a $20 valuation for BNB.
Additionally, Binance uses 20% of its quarterly profits to buy back and burn BNB until the total supply reaches 100 million. The latest burn destroyed 3,477,388 BNB worth $60.5 million—the largest single burn in history.
Meanwhile, through Binance's pioneering IEOs and external investments, BNB serves as the foundational asset and fundraising fuel across the crypto space.
Real-world utility, deflationary model, and strong market sentiment form the three pillars supporting BNB’s value foundation.
This September alone, Binance rolled out multiple BNB-related initiatives.
On September 4, Binance launched BSwap; on September 6, it introduced an innovative product—Launchpool—that brought BNB and BUSD directly into DeFi mining, setting a major industry precedent followed by others and attracting massive user participation. Despite a weak overall market on September 6, BNB rose逆势, gaining nearly 20%.
The new coin mining model combines elements of IEO and DeFi, enabling more users to participate early in project ecosystems through mining.
In the first two rounds, BNB holders could mine BEL and WING tokens for free, with BEL peaking at 24x gains and WING at 14x. Flamingo, the third project, surged up to 14x on listing day. The fourth project, Venus (XVS), is already live and will soon list on Binance.
Simply holding BNB allows users to earn various new tokens via the Launchpool program alone, with total value locked exceeding $1 billion across four rounds so far.
Today brings another重磅 announcement: the DeFi project Alpha Finance Lab (ALFA) will launch simultaneously on Binance IEO and Launchpool. BNB holders can not only mine new tokens for free but also gain eligibility for lottery-based allocations. No wonder some in the community are exclaiming: Holding BNB is such a great deal!
Beyond this, staking and other Binance-native mining products offer BNB holders diversified yield opportunities.
Binance’s successive moves have clearly paid off. These “innovative mining” features empower BNB and significantly expand its utility within Binance’s ecosystem.
Chain Fuel: BNB vs. Ethereum – At Least 10x Room to Grow
Another factor driving a recent uptick in BNB’s price is DeFi mining on BSC. With BSC, BNB has directly entered the realm of decentralized transactions, serving as fuel for the DeFi world.
On September 1, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) went live on mainnet, promoting itself as open-source, Ethereum-compatible, and high-performance.
On September 11, BurgerSwap, the first project on BSC, deployed and generated nearly $400 million in liquidity within two days, locking in approximately 8.2 million BNB with around $160 million in trading volume.
Correspondingly, BNB’s price rose from $23.20 on September 11 to a peak of $33.04 on September 15—an increase of 42% in just four days.
Looking beyond these short-term fluctuations, the broader significance of BSC for BNB becomes even clearer.
According to BscScan data, on September 14, BSC processed over 400,000 transactions daily, with average fees below $0.20 per transaction. In contrast, Ethereum handled 1.08 million transactions that day at an average cost of about $1.40 per transaction.
Despite being only two weeks old, BSC achieved 40% of Ethereum’s six-year-old network transaction volume, yet with fees merely one-seventh of Ethereum’s. While BSC currently has fewer on-chain addresses than Ethereum, its growth rate is rapid, making its future highly promising.
Tokens capture network value primarily by acting as fundraising fuel.
Looking back at Ethereum’s historical rallies—such as its rise to over $1,400 in 2017 fueled by ICOs and its 2020 surge powered by DeFi—its role as "fundraising fuel" has been indispensable.
Among all public blockchains, BSC stands out as the only one potentially capable of rivaling Ethereum. In the future, BNB is highly likely to become the primary fundraising fuel on BSC. Given that Ethereum’s current market cap is about 10 times that of BNB, this suggests enormous upside potential for BNB.
BNB’s utility extends beyond Binance and BSC. Recently, Binance launched the "Canal Project," using cross-chain technology to bridge thousands of chains, connecting all public blockchains to Binance Smart Chain. The BSC community has further upgraded this initiative with the "Panama Project," allowing connections to all public chains without requiring a Binance account.
This means that long-term, BNB may extend beyond Binance’s ecosystem, independently penetrating various public chain ecosystems and evolving into a larger-value token. As BNB strengthens its position as the core token on BSC while capturing full ecosystem value from Binance, its potential is limitless.
It is reported that numerous DeFi projects such as DODO and ForTube have already partnered with BSC. Today’s IEO project Alpha has released its first product, Alpha Lending, on the BSC testnet, and its suite of DeFi products will become key components of BSC’s DeFi application landscape.
Many DeFi protocols are actively deploying on BSC. Beyond recently announced projects like Equator.finance, StormSwap, Pumk.finance, Venus Protocol, BambooSwap, Bounce, and BestSwap, many others have quietly gone live on BSC.
It is foreseeable that BNB will form various collaborations with these BSC partners in the future, flowing into different liquidity pools and further enhancing BNB’s “cross-circle effect.”
CeFi + DeFi = Greater Than 2: BNB Emerges as the Biggest Winner
Viewed from above, Binance’s strong support for DeFi and public chain ecosystems is evident.
On September 11, CZ announced a $100 million seed fund to support the Binance Smart Chain ecosystem, aiming to foster synergy between CeFi and DeFi.
To date, DeFi tokens from BSC-based projects such as Bakery, Burger, CAKE, and SPARTA have been listed on Binance’s Innovation Zone with BNB trading pairs, achieving significant price gains. This not only encourages more DeFi protocols to join BSC but also feeds value back into BNB.
For users, staking BNB in BSC projects to earn tokens—and potentially listing those tokens on Binance for secondary market gains—has become a compelling wealth-generation strategy with balanced risk and return.
For project teams, linking with BNB through Binance Smart Chain offers access to potential support from Binance’s main platform ecosystem—an attractive proposition. More deployments mean a stronger BSC ecosystem, creating a virtuous cycle that benefits all participants.
At every stage, BNB remains central.
Today, BNB’s ecosystem spans centralized exchanges, DEXs, token issuance, mining products, Binance Chain, various vertical applications, and most recently, Binance Smart Chain and the vast DeFi universe. As these use cases deepen and expand, enabling seamless interaction between CeFi and DeFi, BNB—as Binance’s sole native platform token—captures value from all sides, emerging naturally as the biggest winner.
Looking back, BNB started as a simple exchange token but has continuously evolved and grown. Beyond capturing value from Binance itself, it is becoming a value carrier that transcends the Binance ecosystem.
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