Binance is one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges on the planet. Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, its CEO, was recently featured on the cover of Forbes as one of the richest people in crypto, with an estimated net worth over $1 billion.

Just getting listed on the Binance exchange can provide a crypto with a temporary boost of 80 percent in market value. It’s one of the most trustworthy crypto exchanges, with over 150 coins listed and nearly $1.5 billion in crypto traded daily.

Binance charges a 0.1 percent fee for crypto trades, but users receive up to a 25 percent discount by paying fees using its proprietary Binance Coin (BNB). It also introduced a Tiered Trading Fee Discount Program on July 21, 2018 that provides a bigger discount based on a user’s BNB balance and 30-day trading volume.

Before evaluating the Binance platform’s viability as a business, let’s look at how the BNB token is performing on the market.

Breakdown of BNB

Binance has a market cap of $1,151,457,154 as of August 8, 2018. This is based on a circulating supply of 95,512,523 BNB (out of a total supply of 192,443,301) and an exchange rate of $12.06. Its peak price so far was $24.46 on January 11, 2018.

BNB is an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain (although this may change in the future). Its ICO occurred from July 14-27, 2017, at which time 100 million BNB tokens were sold. As we’ve covered previously at Crypto Briefing, nearly 5 million BNB tokens have since been repurchased and burned by Binance. Essentially, it plans to destroy the initial 100 million ICO tokens using 20 percent of quarterly profits four times a year to do so.

Binance also uses the BNB token to fuel ICOs on the Binance Launchpad, a cryptocurrency incubator. Binance Launchpad lends credibility and visibility to upcoming blockchain projects. It’s also rumored to be launching a decentralized exchange.

Binance has an aggressive referral program that pays a 20 percent commission for any trades you refer to the platform. Here’s my Binance referral link if you’d like to check it out for yourself and help a brother out.

The discount for using the BNB token to pay transaction fees started at 50 percent for the first year, and it’s currently at 25 percent. In year three, it drops to 12.5 percent, then 6.75 percent in year four. By year five, the discount for using BNB to pay transaction fees disappears.

Obviously, the biggest use case for BNB is within the Binance exchange, and this is likely to continue. It incentivizes users to hold the tokens to receive increased perks within the exchange. Binance is also the best place to purchase BNB, although it can also be purchased on EtherDelta. If you decide to pull your BNB from the exchange, any ERC-20-compatible wallet, such as MyEtherWallet and Coinomi, can hold it.

Creating a Billion-Dollar Company

Binance came a long way in a short period of time, and this is attributed to the business savvy of CZ. The BNB token is the strongest exchange token on the market, and it had a good 2018 performance thus far. Based in Hong Kong, the exchange now has more users than the population of its home country, at approximately 10 million users.

The exchange got so big so fast that it got embroiled in a feud with Silicon Valley-based VC firm Sequoia Capital, which invested in Apple, Google, Oracle, PayPal, and more. Sequoia was in negotiations to invest in Binance, but the deal fell through when the exchange decided it was worth more.

One of Binance’s most infamous features in the crypto community is its puzzle piece matching CAPTCHA, which plays like a WarioWare minigame.

In addition to the crypto exchange and Launchpad, Binance also created Binance Labs and Binance Info. Binance Labs is a blockchain incubator that assists entrepreneurs with funding, strategy, recruitment, and technical aspects of the business. Binance Info is similar to CoinMarketCap and tracks cryptocurrency prices.

CoinMarketCap is the most-used data source for cryptocurrency market info, and we regularly use it here at Crypto Briefing. In fact, you can find links above in the BNB breakdown section. The issue (which we pointed out earlier this month) is the company and CEO Brandon Chez are notoriously mysterious.

On top of this, Binance invested $133 million for a 5 percent stake in Malta’s Founder’s Bank, a decentralized banking project currently under development. Binance also has a Blockchain Charity Foundation that aims to facilitate charitable contributions through cryptocurrency and blockchain tech.

Because of its high profile, Binance has been targeted with the same hacking and phishing attacks that plague crypto exchanges. In response, it offered a bounty for tech-savvy users to find exploits in its API. It’s currently the fourth largest crypto exchange by volume and competing on all sides to become a cryptocurrency juggernaut in the future.

Summary

Binance is one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, and its CEO is one of the richest people in cryptocurrency. It’s firing on all cylinders to create a crypto-conglomerate that can compete with financial industry giants like HSBC and NASDAQ. The exchange’s success rides on several key factors.

Binance created the BNB token for use within its exchange. It’s known as one of the most trustworthy crypto exchanges. It also has one of the fastest transaction speeds.

In addition to the Binance exchange, it has a blockchain incubator (Binance Labs), ICO platform (Binance Launchpad), charity arm (Binance Blockchain Charity Foundation), and crypto tracker (Binance Info).

Binance recently invested in a decentralized banking concept and is actively seeking to disrupt multiple spaces within the financial sector.

Binance is reportedly working on its own blockchain to move off its dependency on Ethereum.

With these pieces in place, Binance is poised to sustain its business and continue growing. Pivoting is an important aspect of business, and Binance has its hands in all things blockchain. It’ll be interesting to see what moves it makes over the next few years.

The author is not directly invested in any coin listed in this article. He is, however, a registered user of the Binance Exchange. He may earn a commission if you click the Binance referral link included above.