Bangkok in November, the humid air was filled with hot expectations. The crowds at the Devcon venue reflected the enthusiasm of BTC breaking through $90,000 at the time, and rumors on social media about memecoin breaking through one million spread like wildfire.
Traffic here is stagnant, and the taxi apps show red like blood vessels; red also appears under the nearby overpass, where local children shake red transparent plastic tall cups and stretch them out to passers-by, most of which are empty. At the other end of the night, the same red appears in the eyes of hackathon developers: the high-pressure development in a short period of time makes them tired but excited.
At BNBChains Bangkok hackathon, there was plenty of air conditioning and ample space. In the snack area, Lays Tom Yum Goong-flavored potato chips were the first to be sold out, and Coca-Cola was the most popular drink. Within 24 hours, more than 100 developers submitted 38 projects, 8 teams got the opportunity to showcase their projects, half of which were from India, and 3 teams received prize money to enter the next stage. Teams whispered in the audience, and some shook hands and said they would come again next time. The low-key and quiet competition was a small tide, as if it was accumulating strength.
In the past three years, BNBChain has held more than 20 hackathons, covering tens of thousands of developers from more than 35 countries, with more than 1,000 projects submitted and a total prize pool of approximately US$50 million.
Three years of silence
There was a voice in the community saying that “no one plays BNBChain anymore”. It was not until recently that Thena (THE) and Meme from BSC were listed on Binance that they attracted some attention.
During the past three years of silence, BNBChain seemed calm on the surface, but the data gave people a glimpse into another dimension.
According to DeFilama data in November 2024, BNBChain is still firmly in the second tier after Ethereum. According to statistics, the current stablecoin market value ranks third, and TVL (locked value) ranks fourth with more than 8 billion US dollars. The weekly trading volume accounts for one-sixth of the entire on-chain world.
BNBChain currently provides 218 developer tools and has more than 800 active applications, with outstanding performance in DeFi, games and AI.
The MVB (Most Valuable Builder) program, which started in 2021, is an important part of BNBChains support for early-stage projects. According to publicly disclosed information, among the 131 projects incubated by the past seven MVBs, 75 projects have been favored by leading investment institutions including Binance Labs, Coinbase Ventures, Delphi Capital, Zhen Fund, etc., and Binance Labs has invested in 39 of them . According to incomplete statistics, more than 60 projects have completed TGE, and more than 60% have been listed on leading centralized exchanges. Among them, five projects, Galaxy; Mobox; SpaceID; SleeplessAI and Altlayer, are listed on Binance LaunchPool.
Given the high elimination rate of Web3, the survival rate of these early projects supported by BNBChain is outstanding. However, these data are often not perceived by the outside world.
As users have recently embraced the meme culture wave on Solana, the BNBChain community, like many other public chains, has been envious of this explosive user growth and attention.
From an objective data point of view, the number of Memecoins currently generated by BNBChain is still quite different from that of Solana. Currently, there are also meme projects with a long life cycle that have been launched on Binance contracts or spot, such as 1 MBABYDOGE, SimonCat (CAT), WHY and CHEEMS. With the completion of infrastructure such as the launch platform of Four.meme and the long-term support of community resources, it is expected that we can see a more vibrant Meme Season on BNB Chain.
Turn and walk towards the sea
If Ethereum is like a group of idealistic geniuses, Solana is a pioneer who is good at catching attention, then BNBChain is more like a silent craftsman who works quietly.
It is undeniable that Binance plays an important role in this ecosystem. However, the BNBChain community has no celebrities or dazzling technical geniuses, but more of a group of people with small egos and focused on being pragmatic. They often think about: should we follow the short-term trend? What are the truly valuable things in the long run?
Meme represents public opinion and carries the emotions of the community. It is also the direction supported by BNB Chain, but the industry cannot only be based on Meme. In numerous discussions between the community and the team, BNBChain gradually formed a clear positioning, namely: Web3 needs to move towards broader and more realistic application scenarios.
From the perspective of both time and space, BNBChain has built a comprehensive support system for developers and users through patient planning.
In terms of time, in the early stage, hackathons are held to discover and support potential developers and projects; BIA (Incubation Alliance) supports projects for capital docking, and then MVB conducts several weeks of incubation academy projects to pour resources and investment. In the medium term, incentives are provided in dimensions such as user activity (DAU), total locked volume (TVL) and transaction volume after project deployment, while providing technical and market support. In the later stage, resources docking for the entire ecosystem, including but not limited to investment and listing resources docking, as well as the subsequent development of the project.
This timeline advancement model often starts with 1-2 years of companionship.
From a horizontal spatial dimension, the multi-chain ecosystem with BNB as the core, including: smart chain BSC, high-performance second-layer opBNB, and storage chain Greenfield, provides developers and users with a complete oneBNB multi-dimensional infrastructure system.
The sea is there. The ship has been built, where are the caravans and passengers, and where are they going?
“The direction of the tide: AI+”
In the ups and downs of encryption, build a solid ecosystem in your own way.
According to DappBay, among the top 10 projects with the most active addresses on BNB Chain in the past 30 days, 5 are AI-related Infra and Tools, and 3 are Gaming.
Currently, there are more than 30 active AI-related projects deployed on BNBChain, such as AI Agent: My Shell, HoloWorld AI, Sleepless AI; content creation applications such as NFPromt; middle-layer REVOX, Aggregata. Due to the support of Greenfield storage chain, data-related accounts for a high proportion, such as DIN, Alaya AI, JoloWorld, etc. in the data labeling category. According to DappRadar data on November 20, Din ranked first among all AI applications with nearly 700,000 weekly active addresses.
This trend is not difficult to understand. BNBChain has its own second-layer high-speed opBNB and data storage chain Greenfield infrastructure, providing an efficient, secure and private data storage platform, which is the underlying core of decentralized AI application deployment.
The BNB community’s supportive attitude towards AI is also “clear”. Most of the projects mentioned above were incubated by MVB, and Binance Labs has invested in 7 of them. Support occurred earlier than MVB and investment - for example, StoryChain, a project that emerged from the BNBChain hackathon last year, made it to the eighth MVB shortlist, and its mainnet will be launched next year.
The original intention of laying out the storage chain may be due to the optimism about decentralized social networking (DeSoc). Interestingly, the BNB Chain data storage chain plus the infrastructure of intellectual property NFTization, plus the booming development of the AI+Data ecosystem, make BNBChain a perfect match with the recent wave of decentralized science (DeSci).
DeSci usually requires strong data storage capabilities and fast access support, and these data are usually sensitive and private. BNBChains existing ecosystem can help researchers share data better and more securely, provide lower-cost data computing resources, and use smart contracts to ensure fair distribution of scientific results.
This will allow BNB Chain to become the birthplace of the DeSci wave and help to make more scientific research progress that will change humanity.
“A pragmatic and diverse vision for the ocean”
In addition to the AI field with strong data relevance, the BNBChain ecosystem currently also has layouts in the DeFi, GameFi and stablecoin payment sectors.
In the TVL ranking of the BTCFi track, projects such as Solv Protocol, Avalon Labs, Lorenzo, Lombard and Kinza are at the top. Among them, Solv, Lorenzo (formerly MEP) and Kinza are all projects incubated through the MVB program and have received investment from Binance Labs. Avalon is a new member of the eighth phase of MVB. According to Messaris Q3 report, its TVL increased by more than 300% after joining BIA (Incubation Alliance).
Gaming has always been the base camp of BNBChain. In the summer of the previous Gamefi, more than 40% of the gaming projects were built on BSC, where a large number of game users and developers gathered. Currently, the most active users and transactions are: Seraph, TG mini-game World of Dypians, Egg Drops, as well as Gomble Games (which has received investment from Binance Labs) and Elfin Metaverse. Their weekly active users are at the level of 600,000-1 million, contributing most of the transactions on BNBChain.
Many of the projects that have emerged on BNBChain are still very young, but if you trace back to the incubation history of BNBChain and Binance Labs, you can find that they do not seem to be applications from the same period, but coincidences.
For example, Ondo, a leading project in the RWA field, is a project incubated in the third phase of MVB; the same period also includes: DeFi protocol Impossible Finance; DeFi data tool and wallet Debank; trading platform Woo Network. The BTCFi protocol Solv Protocol, which has recently attracted much attention due to its sharp increase in TVL and ranked second, is one of the outstanding graduates of the fourth phase of MVB. Also in the fourth phase are: security network Goplus Security and StarSharks, a star that was once popular in GameFi.
Although these projects belong to different fields and have experienced ups and downs due to narrative changes, they have all survived across time in this fast-moving and cruel industry. What they have in common is that they provide application value to users in their respective fields, and these growing projects have also injected more diversified possibilities into the BNBChain ecosystem and even the entire crypto industry.
Hot topics in the industry are always emerging and changing rapidly. What BNBChain has been doing for a long time can actually be explained in one sentence - it is nothing more than building infrastructure, introducing more developers and applications, and creating value for users.
BNBChain has always said that its vision is to attract the next 1 billion users to Web3, which sounds a bit far-fetched and unrealistic. However, it seems that this community is proving its development philosophy and aesthetics with actions: pragmatic, long-term, and value creation.
Through the continuous improvement of infrastructure, the rise of AI, and the exploration of Gaming and DeFi, what BNBChain has always wanted to and is depicting is a more comprehensive and long-term Web3 ocean.
