On the ever-changing stage of the global crypto market, the return of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) is undoubtedly a heavyweight "drama". On September 29, 2024, he will be released from prison, and this moment, like the silence before a storm, has attracted the attention of countless investors. As a big name in the crypto field, CZ's imprisonment is not only his personal ups and downs, but also a "stress test" for the crypto market. From his four-month prison sentence for violating the US Anti-Money Laundering Act to his upcoming return to the market, CZ's every move will once again affect the future trend of altcoins and the Binance ecosystem.
Although CZ was unable to directly participate in market operations during his imprisonment, the BNB Chain ecosystem still showed strong vitality. Projects in tracks such as DeFi, GameFi, and MEME have sprung up like mushrooms after rain, maintaining the prosperity and innovation of the platform. This self-driven ecology combined with the highly speculative nature of the crypto market means that investor sentiment is accumulating and ready to erupt at any time. The market generally expects that this node of CZ's release from prison will become a catalyst for a new round of carnival for meme coins and altcoins.
It can be said that his return will be like Bob Iger's return to Disney, or Steve Jobs taking over Apple again - the return of key figures often injects new vitality and expectations into the market.
BNB ecosystem develops strongly
During the four months that CZ was imprisoned, BNB Chain continued to maintain a strong momentum of development, and the ecological expansion was not hindered at all. Representative projects in the DeFi field, PancakeSwap and Venus, not only run stably, but also revitalize multiple projects such as Lista DAO. The Meme field is another bright spot. Projects such as Four.meme have attracted a large number of users, driving the platform's activity to continue to rise. In particular, the recent record-breaking price surges of BabyDoge and Cat show the potential for the BNB Chain track to explode - this phenomenon seems to indicate that the market's expected outlet is coming with the return of CZ.
As of September 26, the TVL of BNB chain has been stable between 4-5 billion in the past three months, which is relatively stable. The top ten TVL protocols are Venus, PancakeSwap, Binance staked ETH, Lista DAO, Coin wind, Pink Sale, Avalon Finance, Solv Protocol, UNCX Network, and AAVE V3.
Among them, Venus and PancakeSwap contributed more than 70% of TVL.
Recent Developments
BNB Chain integrates with Telegram: Simplifying Web3 access
On September 20, 2024, BNB Chain officially announced a milestone update - integration with Telegram, the world's leading messaging application. With this integration, the Web3 experience has become more intuitive and accessible, further lowering the threshold for encryption technology. With Telegram robot wallets such as CodexField Wallet and UXUY Wallet, users can send and receive crypto assets and interact with dApps seamlessly in Telegram chats. These wallets not only simplify the asset management of users in the BNB Chain ecosystem, but also provide a convenient entry point for users to participate in decentralized application operations without leaving the chat environment.
Binance launches multiple TON ecosystem tokens: triggering user enthusiasm
In the past few months, Binance has launched several leading Telegram projects, which has stimulated the enthusiasm of TON ecosystem participants. Objectively speaking, the data of Catizen and Hamster are exceptionally impressive even in the Web2 field, and have become the focus of the market. Faced with such huge traffic, no exchange can stay out of it. Relying on the huge Web2 user base behind Telegram, more and more new users are pouring into Binance, and BNB Chain is expected to usher in a good opportunity for user growth.
Gas-free transfers: driving changes in the stablecoin ecosystem
In order to improve the user experience of BNB Chain and further reduce users’ transaction costs, BNB Chain announced the launch of the “Gas Free Carnival” event on September 24. This innovative move enables users to conduct seamless and free stablecoin transfers on BNB Chain, significantly simplifying users’ transaction processes. Through cooperation with multiple top exchanges, wallets and bridging platforms, including Binance, Bitget, Gate.io, MEXC, etc., users can now withdraw stablecoins from centralized exchanges to BSC and opBNB network.
Bitcoin Ecosystem: BTCFI One-Stop Experience
BNB Chain is not limited to the development of stablecoin ecology, its Bitcoin ecosystem has also been significantly expanded. On the evening of September 24, BNB Chain officially announced that through the BTCFI (Bitcoin Finance) ecosystem, users can have one-stop access to a variety of Bitcoin-related financial instruments on BNB Chain. From liquidity staking and re-staking to lending markets and liquidity pools, users can easily access a variety of financial services and enjoy the advantages of decentralized finance.
BNB Chain widely supports Web3 builders
On September 25, 2024, at the Token2049 Singapore Summit, BNB Chain announced the BNB Incubation Alliance winners, congratulations to @Paimon, @Allo_xyz and @CaptainTsubasa for joining MVB Season 8. BNB Chain has always been committed to supporting Web3 developers extensively. The following are support measures for projects at different stages:
For projects in the idea stage:
Hackathon: Encourage developers to participate in creative competitions and promote project implementation.
BNB Incubation Alliance (BIA): Provides resources and guidance for early-stage ideas to help projects grow.
Most Valuable Builders (MVBs): Fund and invest in potential projects to help them achieve commercialization.
For projects in the post-deployment phase:
Incentives and Grants: Provide incentives based on daily active users (DAU), total locked value (TVL), transaction volume, and other key performance indicators to ensure sustainable growth and success.
Additional support: Kickstart; Business development; 24/6 technical support; Marketing support
The impending altcoin craze
Looking at the history of financial markets, it is not difficult to find that similar investment opportunities often appear after the return of key figures.
Michael Milken was a leader in the junk bond market in the 1980s. He was sentenced to prison in 1990 for insider trading and securities fraud. Milken's financial methods were extremely innovative, and although he lost his direct market influence during his imprisonment, his once active junk bond market gradually recovered after his release, and related financial institutions and investment companies were also boosted.
Nelson Mandela was the leader of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and was imprisoned for 27 years for his political activities. After Mandela was released from prison, the international community gradually lifted economic sanctions on South Africa, the political environment became more stable, and investors' confidence in the South African market increased significantly. South Africa's stock market and currency rebounded rapidly, and international capital began to flow back into South Africa, especially in the mining and financial sectors, and the stock prices of related companies rose sharply.
The return of crypto heroes is not only symbolic, but often serves as a catalyst for market confidence, driving the re-influx of capital and sentiment and igniting new market vitality.
Altcoins developed based on BNB Chain or already listed on Binance may quickly gain attention. Such projects usually have good liquidity and endorsement. With the support of community consensus and market makers, they can quickly form a hype trend, thereby attracting short-term speculators and further driving the increase in market trading volume. In the emotionally driven crypto market, CZ's return is very likely to become a signal flare that triggers this round of "carnival".
$CAKE
PancakeSwap: The largest decentralized exchange (DEX) on the BNB Chain. It will remain the preferred liquidity platform for BNB chain users in 2024. Its platform token $CAKE continues to maintain its advantage in trading volume and number of users.
$XVS
Venus: A decentralized lending platform where users can borrow on BNB Chain. Its TVL has maintained strong growth, especially among DeFi users.
$HOOK
Hooked Protocol is a Web3 gamified social learning platform where users can learn, earn, and enjoy gamified experiences in the Hooked ecosystem. It also creates "interactive Lego" around user acquisition and retention to help builders automate their community interactions. For dApps developers, they can use a plug-and-play approach to create applications on top of these "engagement" modules. Hooked's mission is to drive mass adoption of Web3 by providing immersive, gamified, and social learning experiences.
$EDU
Open Campus is a decentralized education solution for educators, content creators, parents, and students that aims to address the main challenges in today's education industry. By decentralizing the creation and distribution of educational content, the project enables students to access more diverse educational content while providing educators with new opportunities to earn income and gain recognition for their contributions. Educational content can be created as NFTs, and the income generated by the content will be stored in smart contracts, and co-owners will be able to extract income based on their contributions (e.g., teachers who create content, publishers for marketing and localization).
$TWT
Trust Wallet is a popular cryptocurrency hot wallet that allows users to retain control of their funds. A core feature of Trust Wallet is its built-in DApp browser that provides a range of vetted decentralized applications. Trust Wallet offers staking and token trading directly in the application. Trust Wallet is a wallet that was acquired by Binance and has invested a lot of effort and energy in its development.
$ID
SPACE ID is building a universal domain name service network with a one-stop identity platform to discover, register, trade, and manage web3 domain names. It also includes a Web3 name SDK & API for cross-blockchain developers and provides multi-chain name services for everyone to easily build and create a web3 identity.
$CHESS
Tranchess is a yield-enhancing asset tracking protocol with various risk-return solutions. Inspired by the ability of tranche funds to cater to users' different risk preferences, Tranchess aims to provide different risk/return matrices from a single primary fund that tracks a specific underlying asset (e.g. BTC, ETH, BNB) or a basket of crypto assets.
Conclusion
In one of CZ’s last tweets before he went to jail, he chose to wish his mother a happy Mother’s Day and recall the scene five years ago. At that time, he was working hard to promote the development of Binance and strive to make it one of the world’s leading crypto exchanges. This tweet not only shows CZ’s deep affection and gratitude for his family, but also reflects his positive attitude in the face of adversity. Even in prison, he still insists on conveying warmth and hope, emphasizing the importance of family support. This move also subtly strengthened the emotional connection with the crypto community, showing the close connection between personal stories and community development in the Web3 field.
I believe that the vast majority of people in the crypto community are looking forward to CZ's return and hope to see CZ active on Twitter again. Although CZ is banned from operating Binance for life under the settlement agreement, he still retains his status as a shareholder and board member, ensuring his important influence in decision-making.
Ten days before CZ was released from prison, the Federal Reserve announced a 50 basis point interest rate cut. This historic move marks the beginning of a cycle of interest rate cuts and is expected to inject new liquidity into the crypto market. Based on past experience, October is known as "Uptober" in the cryptocurrency circle. In the past 11 years, there have been only two declines, and the rest of the time has been an increase, with a success rate of 82%.
Is this a coincidence or a divine will? Can it drive the inflow of new funds and warm up market sentiment? The market situation in the next few weeks is worth every investor's close attention.
