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With Neer Varshney
Binance Coin (BNB) is the homonymous cryptocurrency underlying the world's largest virtual currency exchange bank, Binance.
It was launched in July 2017 as an ERC20 token based on the Ethereumblockchain, collecting $ 15 million for Binance in its initial coin offering (ICO).
The industry of cryptocurrency is (in) famous for having made and broken fortunes in a blink of an eye. But even in this volatile environment, Binance managed to stand out.
Founded in July 2017, it was already the largest cryptocurrency trading bank in the world (by trade volume) in April 2018; it takes less than ten months to get there.
This strong growth has made BNB – which is mainly used to pay for services on the exchange counter – one of the most valuable cryptocurrency assets of 2018.
Review of the BNB / USD market
BNB opened at $ 0.11 on the first day of its public trading on July 25, 2017, according to CoinMarketCap data. By January 1, 2018, it was worth $ 8.63, marking an increase of around 75 times. Most of these gains were made at the end of December in line with the overall growth of the cryptocurrency market.
The BNB had a good start in 2018, rising to $ 24.46 in the second week of January, but saw a correction in the market that soon fell by around 30 percent in less than 24 hours.
BNB touched further lows, falling to $ 5.72 at the start of February, but suffered another recovery shortly thereafter. The BNB's market price ranged from $ 12 to $ 16 for most of the next six months until August, surpassing the $ 17 mark only on a couple of occasions in June.
BNB was around $ 10 between mid-August and mid-November, relatively stable according to cryptocurrency standards. But it seems that it rises to 2018 with a terrible note: the cryptocurrency has fallen to 4.5 $ in mid-December. It is the lowest market price BNB has seen in 2018, marking a massive fall of 81 percent during the year from its highest price reached in January.
The BNB market may not have performed very well against the USD, but it seems to have outperformed other cryptocurrencies. BNB recorded a 127% increase compared to BTC and a 367% increase compared to the ETH of 2018.
Binance – Major events in 2018
At the beginning of 2018, Binance was already attracting attention as one of the fastest growing cryptocurrency activities.
The CEO of Changpeng Zhao was ranked as the third-richest person in the cryptocurrency industry from Forbes in February, just behind Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen and Ethereum's co-founder, Joseph Lubin.
The accelerated growth of Binance has made him a target for scammers. In the months that followed, the currency exchange desk had a lot of hacking fears, but nothing the company could not handle. Multiple phishing attacks hit Binance users with false landing pages that mimicked his platform.
In March, users reported that their cryptocurrency on the exchange was automatically converted into an altcoin called Viacoin, without their consent or knowledge. Binance identified the cause as a phishing attack and denied any compromise on his platform. The company has announced a reward of $ 250,000 to be paid in BNB for any person who leads to information that can be used to prosecute the perpetrators legally.
Immediately after generosity, Binance also announced the intention to launch its own blockchain to create a decentralized exchange and move the BNB token away from the Ethereum platform.
Later that month, Binance found himself in legal trouble in Japan – having previously suffered repression in China and Hong Kong – forcing him to move his offices to Malta.
In June, Binance announced a $ 1 billion venture capital fund for blockchain and cryptocurrency startups, with investments to invest in the BNB token.
The cryptocurrency swap bank hit another dispute in July when a SYS coin was purchased for 96 BTC on its platform, forcing it to reset its API keys en masse. In an attempt to calm traders, Binance has announced a security fund (SAFU) to offset them in the event of such losses.
After tackling problems in some Asian countries, Binance sought to expand into other regions by the end of 2018, particularly in Africa. The company has launched a cryptocurrency exchange counter in Uganda and has also been able to enter Singapore with an investment from Vertex Ventures.
In December, Zhao announced that the decentralized exchange called Binancechain will be launched at the start of 2019.
What to expect in 2019
BNB facilitates trading on Binance and its fate is linked to that of the foreign exchange. The general health of the market has a significant preponderance on the performance of BNB compared to other currencies, since a bearish market implies a reduction of exchanges on the stock exchange.
While BNB has performed better than other cryptocurrencies in 2018, it remains to be seen how the launch of Binance's decentralized exchange will affect its market capitalization.
It is likely that the centralized Binance exchange continues to be significantly more popular than the decentralized counterpart due to user confidence.
Binance as a company has established itself as one of the most profitable in the industry and it seems that it is heading towards a similar trend in 2019 with planned global expansion and launches of new products. With its support, it seems unlikely that BNB holders are ready to suffer major losses at any time.
This article was written by Neer Varshney, a journalist with more than 5 years of experience, who has been in the Cryptocurrency industry since the end of 2015. It's part of Velix.ID, a blockchain startup in India working in the Identity space.
L & # 39; original article it can be found on The next Web.
