From Meme Craze to Financial Cornerstone: How BNB Chain Became the New Hub of on-chain Finance

In the third quarter of this year, an interesting phenomenon occurred in the crypto market - Chinese Meme coins suddenly became popular.

In early October, the Chinese named Meme coin on the BNB Chain (represented by a well-known project) quickly spread overseas, attracting many international players to follow suit. Unlike the previous Meme wave led by Solana, this time the stage has completely shifted to the BNB Chain. The trading heat around the Chinese topic coin skyrocketed, leading to a surge in interaction activity across the entire chain, and the price of BNB rose along with market sentiment, becoming the second most outstanding mainstream asset after BTC.

However, after the market fluctuations, the popularity of Chinese Memes temporarily cooled down. Surprisingly, the head of the Base chain of a leading compliant platform unexpectedly used this Meme project as an example in an application demonstration, and this detail was widely circulated, further promoting the narrative's breakout.

By mid-October, the market began to self-repair. The total market capitalization of the entire crypto market has exceeded $4.02 trillion, on-chain activity has rebounded, and mainstream assets are steadily recovering. So what is the driving force behind this?

Exchange Landscape: The Advantage of the First Place is Expanding

The data speaks for itself. In the third quarter, the global TOP 10 exchanges contributed a total trading volume of $28.7 trillion, an increase of 32.87% compared to the second quarter. Among them, spot trading grew by 36.11%, and derivatives trading increased by 17.32%.

In the $28.7 trillion pie, a certain leading exchange accounted for $9.93 trillion, with a market share of 34.59%—this is the only centralized exchange that has consistently held over 1/3 of the market share. The second tier consists of a certain exchange with 12.60%, a certain exchange with 11.58%, a certain exchange with 11.45%, and a certain exchange with 11.36%.

Interestingly, although the entire market size is expanding, the share of the first place is actually increasing. In spot trading, it occupies a share of 41.26%, an increase of 3.27% compared to the previous quarter; in derivatives trading, it accounts for 33.20%, with a month-on-month growth of 1%. During the same period, the net inflow reached a historic high of $14.8 billion.

Why? It's hard for a platform to become number one, but to maintain that position requires continuous innovation and ecological attractiveness. When the market share of all exchanges fluctuates within a certain range and the market structure tends to solidify, where is the growth? Many platforms are looking towards on-chain.

From Exchange to Public Chain: Finding New Ideas for Incremental Growth

For a leading exchange, it saw this path early on. The on-chain spot product launched in the second quarter was like a key that opened the door to the growth of the chain ecosystem. By the third quarter, this key had fully unleashed its effectiveness.

BNB Chain ranked alongside Solana and Avalanche as the best-performing blockchain in Q3. Its DEX trading volume reached $225 billion, marking the highest level since Q4 2021, second only to Solana ($365 billion) and Ethereum ($337 billion).

But the more critical metric is the number of active addresses—In September, the active addresses on the BNB Chain reached 52.5 million, a month-on-month increase of 57%, surpassing Solana (45.8 million) and Ethereum (8.9 million). The number of transactions is also soaring, increasing from 892 million in the second quarter to 1.22 billion in the third quarter.

What are the direct benefits brought by activity? Fee income. In the entire Q3, BNB Chain generated $357.3 million in fee income, with $2.2 million reached in September alone, setting a new high in nearly half a year.

The depth of the on-chain ecosystem is also changing. The number of DeFi protocols on the BNB Smart Chain has reached 1,033, which is 2.7 times that of another mainstream chain (381). The total locked value (TVL) on the chain has reached 8.729 billion USD. Although there is still a gap compared to Ethereum, it is already close to another mainstream chain (11.368 billion USD), and the monthly growth rate has reached 15.02%, making it the fastest-growing among the TOP 10 public chains.

The Dark Horse of Perpetual Contract DEX

If the on-chain spot product is the first step, then the perpetual contract DEX launched in September is the second step.

The performance of this product was unexpected—daily revenue once reached 7.2 million dollars, surpassing the star product in the derivatives sector (2.79 million dollars). Its growth directly drove the trading volume of perpetual contracts on the BNB Chain to soar by 55% in Q3, reaching 36 billion dollars.

What is supporting it? Cost. On September 24, the validator proposal of BNB Chain reduced the Gas price from 0.1 Gwei to 0.05 Gwei, and shortened the block generation interval from 750 milliseconds to 450 milliseconds. This is the third major fee reduction in the past 18 months.

The fee reduction history of BNB Chain demonstrates how effective this strategy is. In April 2024, the fee was reduced from 3 Gwei to 1 Gwei, and then in May 2025, it was further reduced from 1 Gwei to 0.1 Gwei, resulting in a cumulative reduction of 75%. What direct impact did this fee reduction bring? The median transaction fee decreased by 75%, from $0.04 to $0.01, and the daily transaction volume surged by 140%, exceeding 12 million transactions.

There is a strong correlation between cost reduction and network usage rate. Low costs attract users, and the arrival of users further validates the value of this chain as a financial infrastructure.

Institutions Are Here

But what really changes the narrative is the participation of institutions.

On September 24th, a global investment giant managing $1.6 trillion in assets announced that it is expanding its proprietary tokenization technology platform to the BNB Chain. What do they see in it? The scalability, low-cost infrastructure, and high transaction throughput of the BNB Chain.

On October 15, a wholly-owned subsidiary of a large domestic bank announced that it will put a money market fund with a scale of over $3.8 billion on the BNB Chain. Investors can subscribe using fiat currency or stablecoins and redeem in real-time through smart contracts.

What is behind these two things? RWA (Real World Asset Tokenization). This is no longer a future imagination, but a fact that is happening.

What does this adoption mean compared to the short-term popularity of Memes? It means that BNB Chain is evolving towards the infrastructure of the financial system.

The New High and New Story of BNB

BNB reached a new high of $1376 this year, with a market capitalization exceeding $150 billion, regaining a position in the top 3 of crypto assets. What supports this surge?

On one hand, there is optimism from capital regarding the potential of the Binance ecosystem. In June and July of this year, several publicly listed companies from traditional industries announced that they would incorporate BNB into their balance sheets. As public information revealed that over 30 teams are preparing to launch projects involving BNB reserves, this trend further grew in Q3.

In August, a well-known Web3 team announced a $1 billion financing to establish a publicly listed company in the United States, which will hold BNB as a financial asset and invest in the ecosystem. In October, a Hong Kong-listed investment bank plans to raise $600 million to launch a treasury focused on BNB in the United States. This will become the largest single investment in BNB by a publicly listed company.

On the other hand, the improvement of on-chain infrastructure is also validating the value of BNB. What does it indicate when global investment giants like Franklin Templeton choose to deploy assets on the BNB Chain and traditional financial institutions start issuing products on this chain?

BNB is no longer the exchange platform coin in the traditional sense. It has evolved into a comprehensive encryption asset that integrates trading, payment, public chain fuel, and investment tools. For trading users, it can offset transaction fees; for investors, it is a passport to participate in early projects; for developers, it is the Gas fee; and for institutions, it is a tool for allocating digital assets.

The craze for memes will eventually fade, but the participation of institutions and the implementation of RWA are the keys to whether the BNB ecosystem can cross cycles and achieve long-term growth.

As more institutions choose to adopt BNB Chain, and as more traditional assets circulate on the chain, BNB Chain can truly become the cornerstone of the financial system. This is where BNB is truly headed after reaching a new high of 1376 dollars.