Altcoin BNB smokes Bitcoin and Ether with 1,300% gain this year
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The coin - issued by crypto exchange Binance Holdings - gained roughly 1,300 per cent in 2021.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) - This year, the old guard of cryptocurrencies lost ground to tokens with greater returns. Researchers predict the trend may continue.
Among the three largest digital tokens by market value, Binance Coin, or BNB, significantly outperformed its two larger rivals Bitcoin and Ether. The coin - issued by crypto exchange Binance Holdings - gained roughly 1,300 per cent this year, according to Arcane Research. By comparison, market leader Bitcoin increased 65 per cent while Ether, the second-biggest token, rose 408 per cent.
BNB is used widely on Binance, the world's biggest crypto exchange by volume. It is also the native currency of Binance Smart Chain (BSC), a blockchain platform that supports smart contracts for use in decentralised finance and other applications. With BSC gaining adherents as a challenger to the Ethereum blockchain, that has helped fuel gains in the BNB token, according to Arcane Research.
Other alternative coins, or altcoins, saw major gains this year, benefiting from an explosion in investor interest for digital assets and an expansion of the crypto ecosystem. Solana and Fantom, coins connected with other blockchain platforms that support smart contracts, outpaced Binance Coin's returns, for instance.
"While Bitcoin showed strength in 2021, we've seen a constant stream of capital trickling down into altcoins," the research firm wrote in a note. The firm's analysts predict the strongest momentum in tokens related to the metaverse and GameFi, which is a broad term referring to the trend of gamers earning cryptocurrency through playing video games, along with "Ethereum-killers" targeting Ethereum.
