The Release Of Binance Chain

Binance has launched the main-net of its anticipated blockchain, Binance Chain. BC shows off a custom built protocol for decentralized exchanges (DEXs) with low latency and high throughput, making it ideal for decentralized applications that require high transaction capacity.

Binance chain deploys a pre-selected number of validators to run the chain, and is not a fully decentralized protocol, which allows the throughput to be much higher. This is similar to the Decentralized Exchange they’ve been working on — not quite decentralized, allowing greater flexibility at the cost of true decentralization.

What we should note is that BNB is the most valuable token on Ethereum, with over 4x the market cap of Maker, the second most valuable token.

According to The Block, Binance is attempting to use its influence as the largest cryptocurrency exchange to convince token teams to migrate to Binance Chain from Ethereum.

The key quote, as per a Binance employee:

“Well, let’s just say that projects who move some % of their chain off of Ethereum to Binance Chain will get favorable treatment — and those that don’t could be delisted if their volumes are less than $1M/day.”

It’s doubtful they would actually follow through on delisting solely due to not working on Binance chain due to the bad PR, but it presents an interesting show of force. You can imagine an application faced with this scenario and what their choices will be. It’s entirely possible though that they institute volume requirements for low cap coins on their exchange, and say that you either (1) need to maintain 1M volumes a day or (2) be a Binance Chain project.

This move cements Binance as the most influential cryptocurrency exchange, and builds an ever larger moat around their operations. While many other exchanges can run IEOs, tokens, etc…it’s unlikely they will dedicate the manpower to building their own protocols. This has (rightfully) driven the price of BNB to almost all-time-highs, an impressive showing.

In addition to its own blockchain, Binance has long talked about its own decentralized exchange. This would obviously be disruptive to its current centralized exchange as it wouldn’t be able to extract high fees from users who would have custody over their own funds on a DEX.

Using BNB as gas on Binance Chain and attracting projects to the Chain is a way to ensure consistent and high demand for BNB. As transactions and the number of projects looking to host ICOs on the Chain increase, the price of BNB will most likely increase also. CZ has proven himself to be incredibly innovative when it comes to creating value for BNB, and has built himself many levers that he can use to reverse any case of significant price depreciation.