BNB

BNB, originally called Binance Coin, is the native cryptocurrency of the BNB Chain ecosystem. It was created by Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. Initially launched as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum in 2017 during an ICO, BNB migrated to its own blockchain, BNB Chain (formerly Binance Smart Chain), in 2019.

BNB serves multiple purposes within the Binance ecosystem. Traders use it to get discounted fees on the Binance exchange. Validators stake BNB to secure the BNB Chain network. And developers build decentralized applications on BNB Chain, where BNB pays for gas fees similar to how ETH works on Ethereum.

One distinctive feature of BNB is its quarterly token burn mechanism. Binance uses a portion of its profits to buy back and permanently destroy BNB tokens, reducing the total supply over time. The goal is to eventually reduce the supply from an initial 200 million to 100 million tokens. This deflationary approach is designed to increase scarcity.

BNB Chain has become one of the most active smart contract platforms, supporting a large DeFi ecosystem with protocols like PancakeSwap and Venus. Its compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) makes it easy for Ethereum developers to deploy their dApps on BNB Chain, and the lower transaction costs attract users who want an affordable alternative to Ethereum's mainnet.