Knocking over other high-cap cryptos like skittles, Binance Coin has surged in price today pushing its market capitalization to $36 billion – which is now more than the total Tether supply.
BNB is one of the top-performing crypto assets of the day hitting an all-time high of $250 during Friday morning’s Asian trading session.
Over the past seven days, BNB has made a whopping 87% but that is nothing compared to the 530% it has gained since the beginning of this year. The token started its momentum on Feb. 18 and hasn’t stopped climbing since.
The massive move has shaken up the market cap tables and knocked XRP out of the top five for the first time in six years. In one monumental surge, BNB has managed to flip Cardano, Polkadot, and Tether to settle behind Ethereum in third spot.
Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao, commented that the exchange-based token could actually flip Ethereum next which drew the ire of the crypto community. Prominent crypto investor and industry observer ‘DCinvestor’ stated that newbie retail traders will be influenced by these types of comments;
There was a lot of backlash and the usual crypto tribalism but one respondent rightly pointed out that;
“ETH is unusable for nearly every new investor. Whatever offers the chance to escape the fees while providing similar access to alts will thrive. Binance Chain currently holds that lead.”
In terms of market cap, Ethereum is miles ahead with $220 billion. For BNB to catch it, the coin would need to be priced at around $1,500.
The momentum for BNB may be coming from its latest Launchpool announcement which is a liquidity farm for DODO – a Chinese decentralized exchange running on Binance Smart Chain.
Starting today, Feb. 19, Binance users can deposit BNB, its stablecoin BUSD, and for the first time staked ETH, or BETH, into three farms to earn a million DODO tokens that will be distributed over the coming fortnight.
It is the first time Binance has offered compounded staking opportunities on an asset that has already been staked and locked away on the Beacon Chain.
DODO prices have also benefitted, over doubling in price in the past 24 hours and hitting an all-time high of $5.30 according to Coingecko.
Binance Smart Chain and its projects have gained a lot of traction recently as gas fees on Ethereum drive retail traders and DeFi newbies to more practical and cost-effective alternatives.