Author: Yinan
In the turbulent world of blockchain, there was a chain that took on the most complex trend of the times in a very simple way. It may not be the most advanced, it may not be the most elegant, and it was even regarded as a "hotbed for speculators", but it single-handedly supported the prosperity of an era.
This chain is called BNB Chain.
Now, when the focus of traffic turns to public chains such as L2, Solana, and Sui, BSC quietly restarts its strategy, and Binance also turns the steering wheel again, betting heavily on ecological reconstruction. Is it a desperate gamble, or a rebirth of new buds on an old tree?
In this "empire strikes back" drama, we see not only the update of the chain, but also a multiple confrontation of faith, strategy and destiny.
1.Binance Chain
In April 2019, Binance launched the Binance Chain, but this is an "unintelligent chain" - its goal is to support Binance DEX, focusing on transfer speed and stability, and does not support smart contracts, let alone ecological construction. At that time, this was just a "chain-filling work" of the Binance system, and no one regarded it as a real Ethereum opponent.
2. BSC (Binance Smart Chain)
However, in September 2020, everything changed. BSC (Binance Smart Chain) was born.
This is an EVM-compatible chain with low gas fees, fast block generation, and low deployment threshold. But what really made it step onto the stage of history are two weapons: Binance's resource integration capabilities and the narrative dividend of the times.
BSC has certain innovations in consensus algorithms. The PoSA (Proof of Stake Authority) consensus algorithm it adopts combines the functions of the Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) and Proof of Authority (PoA) mechanisms, and is built on a network of 21 verification nodes. The second-level block time can establish a high-speed infrastructure for the DeFi protocol. As of now, BNB Smart Chain has 50 validators.
3.BNB Chain
In February 2022, BNB Chain was officially launched, which was formed by the merger of BNB Beacon Chain (formerly Binance Chain) and BNB Smart Chain (formerly Binance Smart Chain). BNB Beacon Chain focuses on governance (staking and voting), while BNB Smart Chain continues to serve as the infrastructure to support the construction of a large DApp ecosystem.
4.opBNB
opBNB is a Layer 2 scaling solution designed to enhance the performance of the BNB Smart Chain using the Optimism OP Stack. The solution offers high throughput, low transaction fees, and extremely high transaction processing efficiency, making it suitable for large-scale Web3 applications.
Its scalability exceeds the limitations of Layer 1, with over 4,000 transactions per second (TPS).
opBNB has an average gas fee as low as $0.001, providing high throughput and cost-effective transactions, which can greatly improve user experience.
5. BNB Greenfield
BNB Greenfield is a decentralized storage and blockchain storage solution that aims to leverage the power of decentralized technology in the fields of data ownership and data economy. The main features are: native cross-chain programmability, EVM-compatible storage, high-speed decentralized storage, and seamless migration from Web 2.0.
6. BNB
BNB (Binance Coin) stands for "Build and Build". In addition to fueling transactions on the BNB chain (similar to Gas on Ethereum), BNB also acts as a governance token. Holding BNB confers the right to express opinions and is a necessary condition for participating in the decentralized on-chain governance of the BNB chain.
7. MVB (Most Valuable Builder, referred to as "MVB") Most Valuable Developer Program
In February 2021, Binance announced the launch of the Most Valuable Developer (Most Valuable Builder, referred to as "MVB") Program under the $100 million DeFi Seed Fund to connect the two fields of DeFi and CeFi. The main purpose of this program is to help high-quality entrepreneurial projects on the Binance Smart Chain to make more innovative changes, obtain mature industry experience and financial support, and accelerate the coordinated development of the community and projects.
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That year was the first year of DeFi. SushiSwap, Yearn, and Curve are on fire on Ethereum. Ethereum has also become a "purgatory" for developers due to high fees and severe congestion. In this context, BSC took over the first wave of developers who "fled Ethereum".
Then came the "chain game + Meme" dual-wheel drive: CryptoBlades, PancakeSwap, Safemoon, BabyDoge, all of which flourished, TVL soared, and daily active users soared.
At the same time, many competitors such as OKT chain, HECO chain, TRON chain, Polygon appeared one after another, but except for Polygon (which successfully transformed in the later period), most of them disappeared. BSC, with the three tricks of "cheap, efficient, and traffic-carrying", finally survived to the next era.
In May 2021, BSC's total DeFi lock-up volume once exceeded 20 billion US dollars, second only to Ethereum among all public chains.
With more than 2 million daily active addresses, PancakeSwap's 24h transaction count has ranked first in the entire network for several consecutive months.
Memes such as Safemoon and BabyDoge have driven the enthusiasm of the on-chain community, attracting a large number of retail investors to "refine coins" and "mine".
Solana’s “retail investor magnet”:
Since Q4 2024, Solana’s daily active addresses have been rising, and the 7-day average on May 7, 2025 reached about 1.7 million, for the first time being on par with BSC in terms of activity
Pump.fun’s extremely low-threshold Meme on-chain issuance model has attracted an influx of Telegram and TikTok creators, driving the activity of tens of millions of long-tail wallets.
L2 is flourishing:
Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, Mantle, Scroll and more than 60 Ethereum L2s are developing in parallel, which on the one hand reconstruct the EVM security narrative, and on the other hand, divide developers, TVL and users into smaller groups.
The industry began to worry about "Liquidity Fragmentation". Several researchers pointed out in the Cointelegraph column: Although the surge in the number of L2s is a sign of ecological prosperity, it also directly reduces the stickiness to a single L1.
TVL and Revenue:
As of June 6, 2025, BSC TVL is approximately US$5.9 billion, only one-third of its peak.
In the past year, BNB Chain TVL has shrunk by 11% in 30 days, and DApp weekly transaction volume has dropped by 25%.
Innovation and business card:
When Solana repackages the "retail investor wealth story" with high performance + Meme, and Ethereum L2 attracts developers with security and modularity, BSC seems to lack its own phenomenal identity.
Regulatory and brand pressure:
Binance CEX was hit hard by global regulation, CZ handed over the baton, and Richard Teng took over. The BSC ecosystem was under pressure from public opinion, and developers and funds gradually moved to compliance-friendly or new narrative chains.
"To flourish but not to defend, to decline but not to perish, this is the normal state of the empire."
BSC has been the second largest lock-up chain in the world since the DeFi boom in 2021. Then, it compares the traffic siphoning and capital fragmentation brought about by Solana's "retail magnet" effect and Ethereum L2's flourishing in 2024-2025, depicting its TVL decline, daily activity reduction, brand narrative vacuum and regulatory haze. The empire is in decline after prosperity, and it is in decline before prosperity. All this lays the groundwork for the "reignition" below.
"When luck is gone, heroes are not free, but when luck comes, heaven and earth are all united."
On September 28, 2024, CZ was released and his cousin returned. After his release, Zhao Changpeng posted his first tweet in four months, greeting the cryptocurrency community with a simple "gm".
Then, CZ's cousin and Sister Yi's active interaction on X ignited the enthusiasm of the community. For example, CZ forwarded a post from community user Mubarak Meme, and Sister Yi was online, becoming Binance's top customer service and actively responding to community users. This directly promoted a surge in Meme coin trading volume, with Mubarak's single-day trading volume reaching nearly $100 million.
$TST
The origin of the matter is that in February 25, bnb chain released the FourMeme demonstration video and created the $TST token. The subsequent clarifications and constructions by Big Cousin, the community joked that "it’s like the first time you go to Shang K and want to touch it but feel a little embarrassed." Big Cousin also said that he was still learning, but after some twists and turns, $TST went directly to spot, shaping the wealth effect of BNB CHAIN!
$MUBARAK
On March 12, Abu Dhabi investment company MGX spent $2 billion to acquire a minority stake in Binance.
On March 13, CZ himself forwarded the media news that Binance accepted MGX investment.
March 13, 2:38 pm (UTC+8), Binance Chinese posted a post with a picture of "a piece of cloth on the head".
March 13, 5:20 pm (UTC+8) CZ only sent out the word "MUBARAK" (Arabic for "blessing") and quoted Binance Chinese tweets, thus kicking off the prelude of $MUBARAK!
The strategic position of stablecoins has risen:
In the post-FTX era, on-chain liquidity is increasingly concentrated in stablecoins; the U.S. Senate passed the GENIUS Act9 (Stablecoin Act) by a vote of 66-32, and this milestone marks the imminent implementation of the U.S. stablecoin regulatory framework.
USD1 endorsed by the Trump family:
USD1 is a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, launched by @worldlibertyfi (WLFI) in March 2025, first minted on Ethereum (ETH) and Binance Smart Chain (BSC), and launched on May 23, 2025. Binance Japan spot listing.
The introduction of USD1 not only supplements BSC's USD-denominated asset map, but also provides a new value anchor for DeFi, GameFi and Meme tracks.
「$B」 Ignition effect:
At first, $B's narrative was the BNBCHAIN mascot. In May, the BUILDon project officially announced that $USD1 would be added as a core trading pair. This move directly linked $B to the WLFI project, turning it into a core token bound to USD1 and starting to take over the liquidity of USD1.
Two days after adding the USD1 trading pair, BUILDon announced that it would co-host a USD1 trading competition with the Fourmeme platform. In the following days, $B accounted for more than 50% of the $USD1 trading volume on the entire chain, becoming the de facto main USD1 pool.
Subsequently, BUILDon was launched on Binance Alpha, WLFI announced the purchase of $B, and a series of favorable announcements directly pushed up its market value, with the highest FDV reaching 460 million US dollars, further igniting BSC sentiment.
Background Dilemma:
2024-2025, many projects will often "open high and close low" once they are listed on Binance spot, becoming the end point for institutions and early rounds of liquidity exit, retail investors' confidence is frustrated, the secondary transaction volume of the platform has dropped sharply, and community users are constantly FUD.
Alpha Section Appearance:
2024 On December 17, Binance Wallet launched Binance Alpha, which aims to discover emerging crypto projects and provide users with an entry point to discover early projects that shape the future of the crypto ecosystem. The launch of Binance Alpha, which cuts in with earlier and lower-market-value projects, not only removes the restrictions of Binance's more stringent spot standards, but also provides more options for community users with higher risk appetite and project parties who are racking their brains to list on Binance.
Alpha Points Mechanism:
On April 25, 2025, the Binance Alpha Points scoring system was launched. At the beginning, as long as the tokens of the Alpha sector were traded, the tokens were airdropped to users. The launch of Alpha Points started the craze of "daily score brushing". Users must reach the score threshold to have the opportunity to obtain the airdrop of the newly launched Alpha project or participate in the qualification of Binance Wallet's new issuance.
Alpha Points Mechanism:
On April 25, 2025, the Binance Alpha Points scoring system was launched. At the beginning, as long as the tokens of the Alpha sector were traded, the tokens were airdropped to users. The launch of Alpha Points started the craze of "daily score brushing". Users must reach the score threshold to have the opportunity to obtain the airdrop of the newly launched Alpha project or participate in the qualification of "Binance Wallet new issuance".
Alpha The launch of Points further broadened the moat of Binance and BNB CHAIN. This move has multiple effects:
First, it opened up new channels:
In view of the early visible benefits, from 18-year-old college students to 90-year-old grandmothers, community users mobilized their aunts and uncles, and the loving family to brush Alpha together, which seems to have become a new income-generating channel in the current liquidity recession. Community users even say every day: Have you Alpha today?, which shows the effectiveness of Alpha in attracting new users.
Second, it increased the transaction volume:
The demand for brushing points directly increased the number of DEX transactions and on-chain Gas consumption, especially the transaction volume of BNB CHAIN, because brushing Alpha points only doubles the transaction volume on BSC.
Third, competitive platform suppression:
Through Alpha Points, community user traffic is locked, weakening the siphoning of retail investors by competitors such as pump.fun and other trading platforms.
"Everything can be distributed, and sovereignty ultimately belongs to the user."
In the past two years, high regulatory pressure and black swan events have repeatedly reminded the market:
Decentralization is not a slogan, but the fundamental value of the existence of blockchain.
CZ said bluntly in the long article on October 9, 2022-Centralization vs. Decentralization (2022):
Decentralization is not binary, nor is it one-way. Decentralization contains multiple aspects. Each aspect is a gradient scale, not simply black and white.
It is also important to remember that decentralization is a means to achieve a goal, not the goal itself. The goal is freedom, security and ease of use.
"not your keys, not your coins." Why decentralization?
Because we don't want a few centralized entities to have unlimited power over us, charge us high fees, control how we spend our after-tax funds, etc. We want to give power, control and freedom to the people.
Web3 Wallet & Wallet TGE:
The new version of the wallet embeds cross-chain bridges, TGE Launchpad and ZK identity modules, striving to put all "entry-application-assets" back on the chain.
Alpha Points × Self-custody:
Points accumulation can be completed on the chain, guiding users to actively learn signatures and private key management.
Currently, AI applications on BNB Chain are developing across multiple industries, including:
AI agent platforms and launch platforms: Myshell, Eliza, Revox
AI-driven games: World of Dypians, Xterio, SERAPH: In the Darkness
AI-driven decentralized social networks: Tako, Jam.AI
AI-driven decentralized finance: Termix, Anon
Emotions — $MUBARAK and Meme tools to attract user attention;
Value — USD1 and BNB Chain are deeply bound to supplement the depth of stablecoins;
Incentives — MVB + Alpha Points + opBNB Gas Return to stabilize developers;
Entrance — Web3 Wallet + Wallet TGE to expand on-chain traffic;
Once the four lines merge, they will be superimposed With AI Hub and Greenfield v2 hard technologies, BSC may strive for the position of "AI native traffic portal in the era of multi-chain co-emergence".
In the triple vortex of "decentralization × AI × high liquidity", BSC is using USD1 to replenish blood, Alpha Points to create waves, and AI Hub to lay out the future, trying to write a "new chapter of the empire".
Binance's empire chose to return to its most familiar territory and ignite a new fire.
This bet is about:
Is the echo of faith still there? Can the clamor of the grassroots rise again? Can the engine of narrative still run?
If you still remember the moment when you first used PancakeSwap,
If you have ever felt the warmth of "convenience, speed and fireworks" in on-chain transactions,
Perhaps you will see a glimmer of light rekindled in the return of BSC this time,
History is loading, waiting for that moment" to be confirmed on the chain.
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