Binance Coin
Binance Coin (BNB) is the native utility token of the Binance ecosystem, introduced in July 2017 through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). Initially, BNB was launched as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain with a total supply of 200 million tokens. In 2019, BNB transitioned to Binance's proprietary blockchain, the BNB Chain, which supports fast transactions, decentralised applications (DApps), and smart contracts. The BNB Chain consists of two key components: BNB Beacon Chain (formerly Binance Chain), used for governance and staking, and BNB Smart Chain (BSC), which supports smart contracts.
BNB has a maximum supply of 200 million tokens, but this number has been gradually decreasing through Binance's quarterly coin burns, a process that destroys a portion of BNB to reduce supply and potentially increase its value. A security breach in 2022, known as the BNB Chain Bridge Incident, resulted in the minting of an additional 2 million BNB tokens.
BNB is primarily used to facilitate transactions within the Binance ecosystem. Some key uses include:
Binance Coin was created by Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the founder and CEO of Binance, alongside co-founder Yi He. BNB was introduced through an ICO held from June 26 to July 3, 2017, raising approximately $15 million. Half of the total BNB supply (100 million tokens) was sold to the public during the ICO, with 40% allocated to the founding team and 10% to early investors.
The Binance ecosystem includes several key components, all powered by BNB: