The cryptocurrency boom appears to be alive and well for Binance, the world’s largest digital-asset exchange by trading volume.
One of the hottest coin right now is the Malta-based exchange’s eponymous token, Binance Coin, which has more than tripled in value in the last three months to around $15. The surge comes as the broader digital-asset market is little changed in the wake of last year’s collapse that saw the prices of many rivals tumble by more than 90 percent.
The coin’s outperformance is the latest twist in the dramatic rise of Zhao Changpeng, who co-founded the exchange during the 2017 crypto boom and had run-ins with authorities in Japan and Hong Kong before eventually decamping to the European island nation.
“This is the best executing team in crypto,” said Tushar Jain, managing partner at hedge fund Multicoin Capital Management in Austin, Texas. “We expect to hold them for the foreseeable future.”
Binance Coin, also known as BNB, is used by holders to pay the fees levied by the exchange for trading. It’s also on the way to becoming a favorite medium of exchange for issuers of initial coin offerings, allowing startups to raise money by listing on one of the most liquid crypto exchanges with about $1 billion in daily trading volume.
What’s made Binance Coin particularly attractive is the company’s practice of tying the performance of the exchange to the amount of tokens in circulation. After an ICO issued 200 million of the coins in July 2017, the company plans to spend 20 percent of its profits each quarter to buy back and destroy Binance Coins -- an undertaking that may continue for the next 10 years, Zhao said in an interview. About 50 percent of the coins were allocated to company employees and investors.
“We are in the same boat," said Zhao. "We don’t want the price to drop, to be negatively impacted. We are very much aligned with our investors."