Binance Coin (BNB) exchange rate: how did the price of one of Ethereum's leading competitors change?
The Binance team, which, as of September 2024, is the largest crypto exchange with a daily trading volume of more than $10 billion, introduced a unique business model for its cryptocurrency, providing customers of its platform with various bonuses and privileges.
Later, this model was picked up by almost all major crypto exchanges, but Binance Coin took the lead and remains the largest exchange-traded cryptocurrency on the market today.
Early period (2017 - 2021)
Binance Coin was originally released in July 2017 as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain by the then little-known crypto exchange Binance. The launch of the BNB token was very timely — right in the midst of the first major crypto rally that began in March 2017.
During this period, the price of the BNB cryptocurrency rose from $0.10 to $22.3 — about 223 times. However, after a drop in cryptocurrency quotes in January 2018, the value of Binance Coin more than doubled in just one month — to $8.09. After this drop, the BNB rate started to rise again, reaching $17.07 in August 2018, and then began to correct again until December, when the altcoin's value dropped to $4.65.
Binance Coin became one of the few cryptocurrencies that showed impressive growth in 2019 and reached a new all-time high (ATH), which was nonsense. Already in June 2019, a new ATH was recorded at $37.17.
This rise was due to the launch of its own BNB Chain network, to which BNB tokens from the Ethereum network eventually migrated. Binance, behind the development of BNB Chain, introduced its own BEP-2 standard for issuing tokens on its blockchain.
After reaching a new ATH in June, the BNB cryptocurrency rate began to fall. This continued until March 2020, when its value reached a local low of $9.36 after the WHO's official announcement of the beginning of the pandemic. At this point, the stock and cryptocurrency market crashed for a short time, after which a new phase of growth began.
By February 2021, the value of Binance Coin had already reached a new ATH of $294.6. Shortly before that, in September 2020, Binance launched another blockchain network called BNB Smart Chain. The BNB Smart Chain blockchain was similar in principle to Ethereum. It was also compatible with its virtual machine (EVM), making developing and integrating decentralized applications (DApps) between these networks easier. The BNB Smart Chain has the same address format as Ethereum and a similar standard for issuing tokens on the BEP-20 blockchain (identical to ERC-20). Still, the main difference was using the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism instead of Proof-of-Work (PoW).
The launch of the BNB Smart Chain was a significant development for Binance Coin. It became one of Ethereum's main competitors, contributing to the rapid growth of active users due to faster and cheaper transactions. In September 2024, BNB Smart Chain was the leader in the number of unique addresses created on the blockchain, surpassing Ethereum.
Almost immediately after the launch of the BNB Smart Chain blockchain, its amount of assets blocked in decentralized protocols (TVL) began to increase: if in January 2021, this figure was only $161 million, in May of the same year, it grew to a current record $22.35 billion — that is, more than 130 times. BNB exchange rate by this moment also renewed the historical maximum, reaching $634. After a prolonged correction, lasting until November 2021, the price of Binance Coin again reached a new ATH, already at $654, amid the general rise of the crypto market.
Global crypto market correction and new growth (2021 - 2024)
After the last major collapse of the crypto market in November 2021, the BNB cryptocurrency rate continued its gradual decline until October 2023, when the value of the altcoin fell to $206 — more than 3 times the level of the last ATH.
In October 2023, another phase of growth in the crypto market began amid positive expectations of investors regarding the adoption of Bitcoin-ETF, which took place in January 2024 and became a new stage in the crypto market's development. In the same year, the BNB rate reached a new all-time high, while even the crypto market leaders — bitcoin and ether — failed to do so.
In January 2024, Binance Coin had an ATH of $720, and the BNB cryptocurrency itself became one of the fastest-growing cryptocurrencies in 2024, along with Solana and TON. At some points, Binance Coin lost its position to Solana, but as of September 2024, BNB is once again ranked 4th among all cryptocurrencies after BTC, ETH, and USDT in terms of capitalization, which stands at $74 billion, and the altcoin's exchange rate has stopped at $507.
Conclusion
As of September 2024, BNB Smart Chain is among the top four largest ecosystems in the DeFi market by TVL, which is $4.1 billion. Binance Coin has one of the most developed ecosystems, evolving rapidly and attracting more new projects.
For example, in August 2024, the team at Lido Finance, a leading Ethereum-based liquid staking protocol, announced support for the BNB Chain network, where you can now transfer your LRT tokens (wstETH) via a dedicated cross-chain bridge.