$BNB

What Is Binance Coin (BNB)?

Binance Coin is the cryptocurrency issued by the Binance exchange and trades with the BNB symbol. In May 2024, Binance Exchange was the second largest (as verified by Coinmarketcap) cryptocurrency exchange in the world, with a daily trading volume of $11.8 billion.

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Binance Coin (BNB) had a 24-hour trading volume of $1.45 billion.

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Key Takeaways

Binance Coin is the cryptocurrency issued by the Binance exchange and trades with the BNB symbol.

Every quarter, Binance uses one-fifth of its profits to repurchase and permanently destroy (or "burn") BNB held in its treasury.

Binance was created as a utility token for discounted trading fees in 2017, but its uses have expanded to numerous applications, including payments for transaction fees (on the Binance Chain), travel bookings, entertainment, online services, and financial services.

At the time of writing, Binance Coin (BNB) had a market cap of more than $87 billion, ranking behind only Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USD Tether.

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On Nov. 21, 2023, Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to money laundering charges. Binance agreed to pay $4.3 billion to settle charges; Changpeng Zhao stepped down as CEO and agreed to pay $50 million toward the settlement. On April 30, 2024, Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison and fined $200 million for not complying with U.S. anti-money laundering laws. As of May 11, 2024, Binance is operational and remains a popular cryptocurrency exchange.

Understanding Binance Coin (BNB)

The Binance blockchain is built using Ethereum and uses BNB as its native token. It was launched during an initial coin offering (ICO) in July 2017 and has a strict maximum of 200 million BNB tokens.

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The ICO offered 10%, or 20 million, BNB tokens to angel investors, 40%, or 80 million, tokens to the founding team, and the remaining 50%, or 100 million, to the various participants.