After its Q2 launch, the TVL of Wrapped Beacon ETH on BSC rose 216%, from 51,000 ($82 million) to 161,000 WBETH ($261 million), throughout Q3.
Transfer volumes of top SocialFi applications increased by 159% while volumes of top GameFi applications fell by 19% QoQ.
The NFT sector remained an active area in BNB Chain’s ecosystem in Q3 with secondary transfers (+15%), unique buyers (+20%), and unique sellers (+12%) all rising QoQ.
Though the total value bridged (TVB) is lower than it was when opBNB initially launched, TVB has grown 23% since the mainnet announcement, reaching $4.7 million by the end of September.
Several technical developments rolled out during Q3, including the launch of opBNB mainnet, ZhangHeng Upgrade (BNB Beacon Chain), Plato hard fork, Hertz hard fork, CCIP integration, and progress on BNB Greenfield (with a planned mainnet launch in Q4).
BNB Chain Overview: An Ecosystem of Blockchains
Build N Build Chain (BNB Chain) is an ecosystem of blockchains, where each chain serves a particular function. The five core components of BNB Chain are as follows:
BNB Beacon Chain: staking and governance layer
BNB Smart Chain: smart contract layer
BNB Greenfield: storage network
opBNB: optimistic rollup
zkBNB: zero-knowledge rollup (BNB Chain plans to merge opBNB with zkBNB into one canonical zk-rollup solution)
In April 2019, BNB Beacon Chain (formerly Binance Chain) became the ecosystem’s first chain to launch. Originally powering the Binance DEX, it transitioned to become the dedicated layer for governance (staking and voting) within the BNB Chain ecosystem. BNB Smart Chain (formerly Binance Smart Chain) launched in September 2020 as an EVM-compatible smart contract execution layer for the BNB Chain ecosystem. The rebrand and categorization under the umbrella term “BNB Chain” began in February 2022 as a way to distance the decentralized ecosystem from Binance, the centralized company.
As BNB Chain’s first blockchain, BNB Beacon Chain was built from the Cosmos SDK. Since its launch, it has been secured by Tendermint BFT consensus. Currently, only 11 validators secure the chain; however, BEP-159 (which is running on testnet) proposes a new staking mechanism that will enable new validators to join the network through a permissionless election process.
BNB Smart Chain (BSC) is secured by a form of Proof-of-Staked-Authority (PoSA) that combines aspects of Proof-of-Authority (PoA) and Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS). In PoSA on BSC, the validator set is of fixed size and is elected by stake weight (staked plus bonded). In addition, validators must continue staking assets to secure the network, and validators chosen to produce blocks are rotated (not based on stake weight). Currently, BSC has 32 active validators and 29 inactive.
BNB Chain’s Layer-2s are designed to complement BSC in various ways. opBNB, which launched on mainnet in August 2023, is an optimistic rollup. Built from Optimism’s OP Stack, it utilizes fraud proofs in its verification scheme. zkBNB, which is still on testnet, is a zk-rollup that uses validity proofs in its verification scheme. Both rollups serve as scalability solutions that enable BSC to offload execution in an attempt to decrease network congestion and increase throughput. In the future, BNB Chain plans to merge the opBNB state with the zkBNB proving mechanism. By transitioning opBNB into a zk-rollup, the network would be creating one Layer-2 solution.
BNB Greenfield is a decentralized cloud storage network with a native bridge to BSC. It builds upon the many advantages decentralized storage systems offer (data redundancy, censorship resistance, privacy, and cost reduction) and is designed to transform the way users interact with their data. All aspects of the data stored on BNB Greenfield (file management, metadata, and data permissions) can be seamlessly transferred to BSC. Doing so enhances the range of data programmability that developers use to build decentralized applications (dApps) within the BNB Chain ecosystem. Running on testnet since April 2023, BNB Greenfield plans to launch on mainnet in Q4 2023.
Note: This Ecosystem Analysis explores BNB Chain’s ecosystem in depth within the scope of Q3 2023. The ‘Network’, ‘Financial’, and ‘Staking and Decentralization’ metrics are explored in the upcoming State of BNB Chain Q3 2023 report. Additionally, as an ecosystem analysis, this report will focus on execution layer activity. Because opBNB recently launched on mainnet (August 2023), and zkBNB and BNB Greenfield are currently on testnets, all metrics represent activity on BNB Smart Chain.
BNB Chain Ecosystem: Key Metrics
Ecosystem Performance Analysis
DeFi
Following the broader negative market sentiment that categorized Q3, the price of BNB fell by 23% QoQ. This led to a 23% drop in the average daily total value locked (TVL) in USD terms in DeFi protocols on BSC throughout the quarter. However, TVL denominated in BNB hovered around 15.7 million during Q3. Although the liquid staking TVL was excluded from the figures to avoid double-counting, it grew dramatically QoQ after the Q2 launch of Wrapped Beacon ETH (WBETH). Throughout Q3, the TVL of WBETH on BSC rose 216%, from 51,015 ($82 million) to 161,137 WBETH ($261 million).
The distribution of TVL among DeFi protocols followed the Q2 trend of distributing dominance, also evening out in Q3. Though the top five DeFi protocols all experienced falls in TVL throughout the quarter, TVL became more distributed as the TVL on PancakeSwap (the largest DeFi protocol on BSC by TVL) dropped by 28%. Though Biswap’s TVL halved QoQ, it accounted for less than 2.5% of the total DeFi TVL on BSC.
This trend of distributing TVL more evenly across protocols demonstrates a more robust DeFi ecosystem. In Q3 2023, PancakeSwap accounted for 53% of the TVL on BSC. Now it accounts for only 39%, despite launching revenue-sharing pools for CAKE holders in August. During the same time, Venus Finance’s TVL rose from 18% to 31%, increasing the competition for user liquidity.
Binance Labs funded many DeFi protocols throughout Q3, some of which were launched on or integrated into BNB Chain. Notable DeFi investments by Binance Labs are listed below.
Radiant Capital — Though Radiant launched on BSC in Q1, it received $10 million in funding from Binance Labs in Q3. Radiant is a cross-chain lending and borrowing protocol that enables users to deposit and borrow assets across multiple blockchains.
KiloEx — Binance Labs invested an undisclosed amount in KiloEx, a high-performing project from its Most Valuable Builder (MVB) program, an accelerator program run by Binance Labs. KiloEx is a perpetual decentralized exchange (DEX) focused on risk management and capital efficiency.
Kinza — Another high performer from the MVB program, Kinza is an onchain money market that focuses on delivering real yield and a dynamic interest rate curve for lenders to adjust their risk tolerance.
Curve DAO — Binance Labs invested $5 million into the Curve DAO token (CRV) and is supporting Curve’s expansion/integration to the BNB Chain ecosystem. Curve is a stableswap that was launched on Ethereum at the start of 2020.
Helio Protocol — Having launched in August 2022, Binance Labs invested $10 million into Helio Protocol. Similar to MakerDAO, Helio Protocol is a liquidity protocol for earning yield on collateralized assets, enabling users to borrow its overcollateralized stablecoin, HAY.
Stablecoins
BNB Smart Chain is a significant player in the stablecoin space. BSC supports the third-highest stablecoin market cap at roughly $4.9 billion, behind Ethereum and TRON. In Q3 2022, BUSD and USDT were competing for the most market share of stablecoin volume on BSC, with BUSD accounting for 39% of the transfer volume and USDT accounting for 43%. However, the composition of the stablecoin market share on BSC has changed dramatically over the past year due to a series of events driving liquidity away from BUSD.
Though BUSD started modestly losing its share of the market toward the end of 2022, events from Q1’23 began pushing liquidity out of BUSD at a faster pace:
January 2023: Binance admitted that stablecoin pegged BUSD had a $1 billion gap in collateral.
March 2023: Coinbase suspends BUSD stablecoin trading.
Following the events from Q1’23, BUSD’s net transfer volume fell by roughly $31 billion, while the remaining market’s net transfer volume fell by about $3 billion (excluding BUSD). Despite all stablecoin volumes falling QoQ, USDT’s transfer volume reached $86 billion in Q3’23, now accounting for nearly 81% of the total stablecoin volume on BSC. Both BUSD and USDC accounted for $11 billion and $9 billion, respectively, in Q3’23.
NFTs
Although secondary NFT sales volume fell by 11% in Q3, the number of unique NFT buyers and sellers grew by 19% and 11%, respectively, despite declines across the broader market. The growth in unique buyers and sellers follows large increases from the previous quarter (+294% and +1,454%, respectively). Transactions also increased in Q3, indicating that the average sale price per transaction dropped.
Despite a fall in secondary sales volume, the increase in NFT activity on BSC coincided with several developments across the BNB Chain ecosystem, including:
Avavio — At the start of Q3, Avavio launched Virtual Human NFTs, where holders own the intellectual property of the avatars that the NFTs represent. Avavio raised $300,000 during the first round of its NFT presale.
ChainGPT — After integrating with the BNB Chain ecosystem in May, ChainGPT launched its AI NFT Generator product in June. The feature enables users to generate NFTs after providing simple text-based prompts. The AI NFT Generator can be used on both BSC and opBNB.
SpaceCatch — A mobile game that plans to support augmented reality gameplay similar to Pokémon GO. SpaceCatch sold its first 500 NFT genesis boxes in under a minute.
GameFi
There was little correspondence between attracting unique active wallets (UAW) and generating transfer volume among top GameFi applications on BSC. Though SecondLive consistently received the highest percentage of daily UAW, it almost always facilitated the lowest transfer volume. Conversely, while Alien Worlds generated the largest transfer volume, it consistently took the lowest share of daily UAW.
These differences may be a consequence of both incentives and game structure. SecondLive, which launched within the last year, has steadily grown its users and transfer volume as more of a lifestyle-type game like The Sims. As a self-proclaimed “Metaverse Marketing Hub,” SecondLive seems to focus less on competition. Alternatively, Alien Worlds holds frequent contests wherein users must complete many tasks to earn rewards and advance through the story.
Below are descriptions of the top five BSC-based GameFi dApps by UAW and the top five by transfer volume from September. Two games (BLCR and MOBOX) ranked top five in both categories.
SecondLive — A marketing-focused metaverse application where users create avatars that they use for monetizing virtual creations and playing metaverse games.
BLCR (Battle Left Center Right) — A battle card game where users bet on themselves to win and are rewarded based on the odds of beating their foes (currently in beta testing, though still on BSC).
MOBOX: NFT Farmer — A yield-farming ecosystem for games where users earn rewards for participating in MOBOX-list games.
Meta Apes — A mobile-focused play-to-earn MMO strategy game.
Tiny World — A fantasy-based play-to-earn game that incorporates yield farming and an NFT marketplace.
Alien Worlds — A metaverse game that enables users to create and trade assets while traversing virtual worlds.
Midas Miner — A play-to-earn game where players collect in-game assets from mining (in gameplay) and can sell on the in-game marketplace.
Tap Fantasy — A play-to-earn MMORPG that also enables developers to create gaming modules and players to customize aspects of their characters.
SocialFi
Although transfer volume corresponded to UAW more strongly in SocialFi, fostering the largest percentage of daily UAW did not lead to facilitating the highest volume of transfers. While CyberConnect dominated in daily UAW throughout the past half-year, XCAD Network accounted for most of the transfer volume. In Q3, it facilitated $3.9 million in transfers, while Galxe facilitated the second most with $617,000.
The launch and success of friend.tech on the Ethereum rollup, Base, inspired a wave of SocialFi applications to launch across various ecosystems. In late August, a BSC-native application called Friend3 launched a pay-per-group application similar to friend.tech that ended up dominating the transfer volume among SocialFi dApps on BSC. Despite being live for less than half of Q3, it still garnered the third-highest transfer volume ($71,000) among SocialFi dApps.
Below are descriptions of the top five BSC-based SocialFi dApps by UAW and transfer volume from September.
Galxe — A Web3 credential data network that provides tools and infrastructure for decentralized product development and community engagement. It helps bridge the interaction between brands, developers, and communities within the Web3 framework.
XCAD Network — A watch-to-earn platform that enables users to earn creator token rewards for watching content on YouTube.
Friend3 — A social application similar to friend.tech offering users pay-per-group communities with a donation mechanism, public chats,
CyberConnect — A social network protocol that provides developers with tools to build social applications.
TaskOn — A platform where initiators post tasks for other users to complete and earn rewards.
SocialFi vs. GameFi
Top-performing SocialFi applications on BSC have more overlap than GameFi applications. The top five SocialFi dApps by UAW are the same as the top five by transfer volume. In GameFi, the only crossover came from BLCR and MOBOX.
In Q3, the top five social dApps on BSC attracted almost 32,000 unique active wallets (UAW). The number nearly equaled the top five GameFi applications by UAW, which drew over 32,000 UAW. However, SocialFi UAW vastly outperformed the UAW attracted by the top five GameFi dApps by volume by almost 300%. Despite attracting a lot of users, SocialFi did not contribute to a large amount of the value transfer on BSC.
In Q3, the top five SocialFi applications only facilitated $4.7 million in transfer volume. Meanwhile, the top five GameFi dApps by volume generated $18.2 million, with Alien Worlds and MOBOX accounting for $8.9 million and $7.6 million, respectively. Regardless, SocialFi in the BNB Chain ecosystem is still growing and is a more recent narrative than gaming.
opBNB
opBNB is an EVM-compatible optimistic rollup that helps scale execution throughput for BSC. After its testnet in June 2023, opBNB silently launched its mainnet in mid-August 2023, seeing net inflows of $4.7 million in BNB and BUSD. The total value bridged (TVB) peaked at roughly $6.4 million in late August and shrunk to $3.4 million in early September.
On September 11, despite a low volume, opBNB experienced inflows of five additional assets: CAKE, FDUSD, BTCB, ETH, and USDT. Two days later, opBNB announced the launch of its mainnet and immediately saw a burst of additional liquidity. Though the total value bridged has not surpassed what it was when opBNB initially launched, TVB has grown 23% since the mainnet announcement, reaching $4.7 million by the end of September.
A potential driver of future opBNB TVB growth may come from users seeking a solution that offers low gas fees, both in comparison to BSC and other Layer-2 solutions. After sampling a random set of 50 recent transactions (as of writing), the median opBNB transaction fee was $0.005. Using the same sampling method, the median transaction fees for BSC and other Layer-2 solutions are listed below for comparison:
BNB Smart Chain (BSC) — $0.009
Base — $0.03
Optimism — $0.04
Arbitrum — $0.05
Polygon zkEVM — $0.06
Other Use Cases
Other use cases that emerged during Q2 were also drivers of activity in Q3. One of the most notable applications was TinyTap, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands. It is a code-free platform for educators to create interactive educational content that grew significantly in Q2, averaging 30,000 daily UAW. TinyTap continued this trend upward in Q3, averaging 35,000 daily UAW throughout the quarter.
Additionally, BSC experienced activity across other use cases like artificial intelligence (AI), entertainment, and business operations.
QnA3 — A knowledge-sharing platform that leverages its community and AI agents to source information for users. Exclusive to BNB Chain.
MuratiAI — A web platform and Telegram bot that enables users to create images and video anime by sending prompts either through Telegram or on the web application. Exclusive to BNB Chain.
HELLO — A token-gated entertainment platform for HELLO tokenholders to access exclusive visual, gaming, and NFT content. Exclusive to BNB Chain.
GAGARIN — A launchpad that aims to connect startups to a wider base of capital by lowering the barriers to entry for investors. Launched on BNB Chain and Polygon.
QuestN — A service that offers users marketing and Web3 analytics tools. Launched on BNB Chain and six other ecosystems.
Development Activity
Developer activity on BSC cooled off in Q3 as BNB Chain made strides in other ecosystem efforts — like launching opBNB mainnet and preparing to launch BNB Greenfield on mainnet. While Q2 saw the most unique contract deployers over the past year, Q3 experienced the least as efforts to grow activity on new ecosystem chains expanded and the BNB market cap faced its sharpest decline in a year (–25%).
The number of unique contracts verified is determined by the number of smart contract verifications. Smart contract verification is the process of ensuring that a smart contract's source code (the set of instructions written in a high-level, human-readable language) accurately corresponds to its compiled form, known as bytecode, which the EVM executes. This system ensures that the advertised code for the smart contract matches what's actually operating on the blockchain.
As expected, the number of contracts verified closely follows the pattern of unique contract deployers. Despite BNB Chain’s continued efforts to foster greater development in the ecosystem, the number of verified contracts dropped by 34% QoQ, reverting back to Q1 levels.
Qualitative Analysis
Key Events, Catalysts, and Community Efforts for Ecosystem Growth
BNB Chain consistently builds many ambitious projects and delivers new products to its user base. However, BNB Chain is often under-discussed, likely a result of its association with Binance — the principal on/offramp of the BNB Chain ecosystem. Binance is currently facing regulatory scrutiny from U.S. entities, making it harder to onboard people into BNB Chain’s ecosystem.
Regardless, BNB Chain still maintains a large user base, consistently pushes new developments, and fosters an active community around the ecosystem. Three elements stood out during Q3 in particular:
New Launches and Technical Developments — Evolve network architecture and improve functionality.
Safety Efforts — Efforts initiated by BNB Chain and the community to ensure safety and improve the user experience.
Ecosystem Growth Strategy — Growth-oriented initiatives to encourage development, captivate users, and foster a community for the BNB Chain ecosystem.
As an optimistic rollup, opBNB assumes transactions are executed correctly, but it maintains a challenge period after sequencers send the newly executed batch of transactions to BSC. This system utilizes fraud proofs at the verification phase. Any opBNB user can challenge the validity of the sequenced and submitted transactions by submitting fraud proofs.
The economic incentives for proving fraud often lead MEV (maximal extractable value)-seeking bots to execute transactions offchain (for free) and submit fraud proofs as quickly as possible upon finding any inconsistencies with sequencer-submitted transactions. This system ensures a high probability of valid transaction processing while the rollup adds scalability to Layer-1 throughput.
Leading to its mainnet launch, opBNB established a partnership with node provider NodeReal, added an opBNB explorer, and integrated with multiple developer platforms, various crypto wallets, and Polyhedra’s zkBridge. Since launching, opBNB has demonstrated an ability to process up to 4,000 transactions per second with an average gas fee of $0.005. In the future, the opBNB state will merge with the zkBNB proving mechanism, transitioning opBNB into a zk-rollup as the singular Layer-2 solution on BNB Chain.
Launch of BNB Greenfield
BNB Greenfield is a blockchain and storage network that aims to synergize its natively offered decentralized cloud storage with the smart contract functionality of BNB Smart Chain (BSC). BNB Greenfield does not support a generalized application layer like the EVM, but it will include a native cross-chain bridge between itself and BSC. The bridge will enable developers to integrate BSC smart contracts with its decentralized storage services.
BNB Greenfield’s core offering to users and developers will be the ability to store large data files on a decentralized network. Compared to a generalized smart contract platform, BNB Greenfield will unlock several novel (or at least more efficient) use cases. These include:
Decentralized hosting of AI datasets
Online application hosting on a decentralized network
Social networking data storage
NFT data storage
Data marketplaces
API backend for large datasets
Visual content file storage
Archival blockchain data storage and data availability
BNB Greenfield has been running on testnet since April 2023. It will ultimately launch on mainnet in Q4 2023, enabling developers to build data-intensive applications within the BNB Chain ecosystem. Building up to its mainnet launch, BNB Greenfield underwent multiple updates throughout Q3 2023, adding two new features in the process:
July Maintenance Upgrade: The upgrade added support for data recovery, resumable upload for big files, using Alicloud OSS as the underlying storage, and sharding of large-capacity data tables.
Nagqu Upgrade: The upgrade added a time-lock mechanism for withdrawals worth 100+ BNB, native SDK for Ali OSS-based storage providers (SPs), detection tools to prevent funds in payment accounts from being permanently trapped in the Cosmos Bank module, user read traffic billing based on usage rather than download count, support for folder uploads, and improvements of the performance and stability of SP processing for file uploads.
Technical Developments
BNB Chain continued improving BSC and BNB Beacon Chain throughout Q3. The main technical developments are listed below.
ZhangHeng Upgrade (BNB Beacon Chain) — This hard fork upgrade went live on July 19, 2023. It fixed a few bugs, patched a security issue, and implemented the following BEP:
BEP-255: Includes an asset reconciliation feature that will halt BNB Beacon Chain block production upon discovering reconciliation errors while tracking user balances. This update attempts to improve security and could potentially prevent hacks like the $100 million cross-chain bridge exploit from October 2022.
Plato Hard Fork — As a part of the V1.2.9 update of the BSC Mainnet, Plato went live on August 10, 2023, and implemented the following BEP:
BEP-126: Introduces the “Fast Finality Mechanism,” which reduces the time to finality (probabilistically) on BSC from 14 to up to 2 blocks. This update should minimize the risk of chain re-organizations and stabilize block production.
Hertz Hard Fork— As a part of the V1.2.9 update of the BSC Mainnet, Hertz went live on August 30, 2023. Hertz ported some of the London and Berlin upgrades from Ethereum to BSC. However, it did not introduce a new burn mechanism or the concept of a gas tip. The Hertz hard fork implemented the following BEPs:
BEP-212 (London): Removes gas refunds for SELFDESTRUCT and reduces gas refunds for SSTORE to a lower level where the refunds are still substantial but does not encourage exploits. This update is a response to the unintended, harmful consequences of gas refunds like state bloat and volatile block sizes.
BEP-226 (London): Introduces EIP-1559 headers and transactions to BSC but with the base fee set to 0.
BEP-227 (London): Adds a new EVM opcode (0x48) that gives the EVM access to the block's base fee (BASEFEE).
BEP-228 (London): This upgrade rejects the deployment of new smart contracts starting with the 0xEF byte. Contracts conforming to the EVM Object Format (EOF) are validated when deployed. This upgrade prevents the growth of the search space and limits the analysis to the contracts existing before this upgrade (contracts not starting with the 0xEF byte).
BEP-225 (Berlin): Changes the gas cost calculation for the ModExp (modular exponentiation — 0x00..05) precompile. This adjustment aims to reduce the cost of the operation to better reflect the computational workload.
BEP-229 (Berlin): Introduces a flexible transaction structure enabling transactions to be defined by a unique "type" and accompanying "payload." This structure allows various transaction formats to coexist, each with its own validation rules.
BEP-230 (Berlin): Increases gas cost of the first transaction for the following state access opcodes: SLOAD (0x54), *CALL (0xf1, f2, f4, fA), BALANCE (0x31), EXT* (0x3b, 0x3c, 0x3f), and SELFDESTRUCT (0xff). This update raises the cost of accessing these opcodes to reflect the computational and I/O resources required to process them, thereby discouraging malicious actors from initiating spam or DDoS attacks.
BEP-231 (Berlin): Adds a transaction type containing an access list, which is a list of addresses and storage keys that the transaction plans to access. Transactions can access addresses outside the list; however, gas is more expensive when doing so.
CCIP Integrates BNB Chain — Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) integrated BNB Chain in Q3. CCIP facilitates cross-chain communication. It also enables developers to build applications that can transfer data and assets between CCIP-supported networks. At the time of writing, Chainlink has yet to open the CCIP mainnet to the public.
With development across all other chains within the BNB Chain ecosystem, zkBNB development was largely stagnant while it operated on testnet. Notoriously, zk-rollups are more challenging to implement than optimistic. They require heavy computational proofs and rely on complex cryptography with a scarce supply of expertise. Zk-rollups also lack a wide array of developer tooling and are more difficult to integrate with fundamental blockchain and software concepts (maintaining data availability, introducing new upgrades, and building interoperability layers) while preserving zero knowledge.
The upfront complexity of zk-rollups may explain why opBNB launched on mainnet before zkBNB and why BNB Chain has yet to develop a zero-knowledge Layer-2 mainnet solution. With the goal of transitioning opBNB to zk-rollup, BNB Chain will effectively merge the opBNB state with the zkBNB tech stack to create a more trustless scalability layer for BSC.
Safety Efforts
The BNB Chain aims to maintain a safe ecosystem for users with efforts initiated by BNB Chain and the community. Notable initiatives from Q3 are listed below.
AvengerDAO and DappBay — A community-driven initiative, AvengerDAO identifies and reports on potential exploits, scams, and malicious actors on BNB Chain. It publishes all dApps and smart contracts that it assesses to be scams or high-risk on the Red Alarm. In Q3 2023, AvengerDAO reported 94 high-risk projects, with the majority being phishing schemes.
Hashdit Integrations — A firm focused on providing threat intelligence information to users, Hashdit powers the Red Alarm hosted on DappBay. In August 2023, Hashdit reported that losses due to security incidents on BSC fell by 60% month-over-month, from $11.3 million to $4.5 million. Hashdit also integrated its security API with PancakeSwap, TrustWallet, and BscScan to improve user safety and security across the BNB Chain ecosystem. (PancakeSwap now displays risk scores for tokens; Trust Wallet notifies users of risks before signing transactions; BscScan displays risk warnings directly in the explorer.)
Ecosystem Growth Strategy
The drivers of BNB Chain’s network activity and fundamental value accrual include its growth strategy to attract developers and grow its ecosystem. BNB Chain has established several growth initiatives that continued through Q3 2023, including:
Builder Grants — The program awards dozens of grants to not-for-profit projects each quarter for the creation of public goods.
Gas Grants — The program incentivizes projects that contribute to the BNB Chain ecosystem by providing them with gas fee grants proportional to their monthly gas fee volume. The total pool for these gas grants is fixed at $200,000 in BNB tokens each month, with individual projects receiving up to $15,000 monthly. In July, 29 projects received grants; in August, 20 received grants; and in September, 23 received grants.
Kickstart — Provides tools and services to help projects kick-start their development.
Advisory Support — Builders can request advisory services from BNB Chain that cover tokenomics and technical infrastructure.
Hackvolution — This one-and-a-half-month hackathon focused on development in Infrastructure, Gaming, DeFi, and AI. It occurred in Q3 and awarded 16 teams between $2,000 and $14,000 out of a $72,000 total prize pool. Codex Field won the top prize among infrastructure protocols, and Op-Intents won the top prize among AI protocols.
Closing Summary
The NFT sector remained an active area in BNB Chain’s ecosystem in Q3, with QoQ increases in secondary transfers (+15%), unique buyers (+20%), and unique sellers (+12%). Top SocialFi applications were also active, with transfer volumes rising by 159%, though volumes for top GameFi applications fell by 19% QoQ. Furthermore, DeFi TVL remained constant in BNB terms throughout Q3. However, stablecoin transfers dropped by 42% QoQ, and unique contracts verified declined by 34% QoQ.
BNB Chain’s efforts to grow the ecosystem may have helped combat the decreased activity that could have resulted from the 23% drop in the price of BNB in Q3 — which followed the broader market. Regardless, BNB Chain continued to ship products, launching the opBNB mainnet in August and planning for the upcoming launch of the BNB Greenfield mainnet. It also delivered a multitude of technical developments and was integrated into Chainlink CCIP. As the network with the third-largest token by market cap, the BNB Chain ecosystem remains active, community-driven, and focused on growth.
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