Binance: Could BNB Replace Bitcoin?

Throughout its existence, Bitcoin has been the cryptocurrency to lead the market and with the recent bull run that the market has experienced, a lot of the smaller cryptocurrencies have also seen gains.

With the crypto market maturing though, these smaller cryptocurrencies have quickly found their feet to make ground on their own and step out of Bitcoin’s shadow, so to speak.

Binance Coin is a good example of this. It is an Ethereum token used to pay fees on one of the biggest crypto exchanges in the world by trading volume, Binance. This year, the Binance Coin has surged by more than 300 percent, gaining the most of the top ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation according to data from CoinMarketCap.

The most recent launch of Binance Chain earlier this month was the factor between another Binance Coin price rally, in taking it above its previous all-time high of $24 per token.

Last month, Weiss Ratings gave Binance Coin an overall rating of B-, putting it in the same area as Bitcoin, XRP, and EOS.

The Weiss Ratings report gave the world’s biggest cryptocurrencies overall score, most of which weren’t as good as their overall tech and adoption grades. EOS, Bitcoin, XRP and Binance Coin all scored a B- but other coins like NEO, Cardano, Stellar, TRON and Litecoin were all given a C- grade.

The authors of the report have warned, "Binance merits a B-, but its grade is currently influenced by a recent surge in its market price, which may not be sustainable."

The report was titled Dark Shadows with a Bright Future and also gives grades to cryptocurrencies that have the best combination of adoption and technology, leaving EOS to lead the pack, above its long-time rival Ethereum and was put in the same class as Ripple’s XRP.

At the time of writing, Binance Coin is performing well, being a top ten cryptocurrency in terms of its market cap and whereas its market cap is above $3 billion, there is a long path to walk before it could even dream of getting to the levels of Bitcoin, with a market cap of more than $90 billion currently.

In addition to this, Binance Coin has been given a boost recently thanks to the launch of the Binance DEX (decentralised Exchange) after the company released its testnet for public use in February.

The Binance DEX is expected to be the world’s first widely-used decentralised exchange and is built on Binance’s own blockchain, Binance Chain. The decentralised exchange will allow users to retain control of their own private keys, something that many cryptocurrency users have long called for so hackers are not able to break into accounts if the centralised exchange database is compromised.

De-listing

Meanwhile, though, Binance has been the subject of a bout of controversy with the recent de-listing of the Bitcoin Cash fork, Bitcoin SV which split from BCH last November and was the potential reason Bitcoin crashed below $3,500.

Last week, Binance said that it would de-list Bitcoin SV, citing that the cryptocurrency can no longer “meet the high level of standard we expect."

The decision was followed by a lot of other crypto exchanges but ahead of decision, the famous and well-known CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao warned that his exchange could remove Bitcoin SV if its biggest component, Craig Wright continues his claim that he is the infamous ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’ and attack those who disagree with him.

A lot of Bitcoin SV developers and enthusiasts were quick to argue the decision and accused Binance as manipulating the market.

Calvin Ayre is a big support of Wright and the founder and owner of CoinGeek, a cryptocurrency miner and developer, told the Financial Times in response to the de-listing saying:

"This decision will certainly be reported to the Maltese regulators as this is surely a case of people in trusted positions abusing that trust and playing God with which token gets the most volume and market access… In essence, market manipulation.

The decision to delist bitcoin SV seems to be based on the fact that they don’t like one scientist that works on the platform. Craig [Wright] doesn’t own [bitcoin SV], nor does anybody, so this appears to be very unprofessional. An exchange should just want volume of trading not picking which horses it wants to win the race and, as a result, smells of fear and manipulation."