Alex Valaitis Profile picture
Jun 3 12 tweets 3 min read
My research on #BNB chain is admittedly off to a slow start.

This is somewhat due to a seemingly smaller online community & less available content than other blockchains I've studied.

That being said, here is what I have learned about BNB chain so far 🧵
BNB chain stands for "Build 'N Build". It actually consists of 2 chains:

1. The 'BNB Beacon chain' (formerly Binance chain): For staking and governence

2. The 'BNB smart chain' (Formerly Binance Smart chain): Its EVM-compatible smart contracts chain
The history of BNB chain at a high-level 👇

2017: @cz_binance launches Binance, a crypto CEX (still the largest to this day) + the BNB token

2020: Binance Chain + Binance Smart Chain launch

2022: BNB chain launches as a merge of BSC and Binance chain
Let's start with the $BNB token. Initially, this was launched as an ERC-20 token on @ethereum.

It then became available as a native token with the launch of its chain in 2020, and users were encouraged to migrate funds over (each ERC-20 BNB was burned as it moved)
$BNB has a fixed max supply of 200M.

$BNB's initial utility was for discounted trading fees on its exchange. However, its use cases have since expanded.

Binance also has an interesting model where they use 20% of profits each quarter to buy BNB then immediately burn it.
As for Binance Smart Chain (BSC), this was initially launched in response to the demand in 2020 from 'DeFi summer'.

The spike in transactions caused gas fees to skyrocket on Ethereum.

In response Binance literally hard-forked Ethereum with a few tweaks to bring down costs.
On the one hand, this benefitted them a lot in the short term as it saved them from having to build a layer-1 from scratch.

Not to mention, they were immediately EVM-compatible, which made it easy for developers to simply port their apps over from Ethereum.
On the other hand, the tweaks they made to lower network costs, came directly at the hands of centralization.

Binance is extremely centralized with initially only 21 network validators (soon to be 41?).

Note: The validator staking requirements for Binance are 10,000 BNB (~$3M)
That brings us to the current BNB chain, which appears to be a rebrand that is being driven by regulatory concerns

Because of its centralization issues, the branding away from 'Binance' in the name was a natural first step

I need to research more into the other protocol updates
I must admit that I am feeling pretty skeptical about the BNB chain.

My current read is that it was an opportunistic launch by a centralized exchange during DeFi summer & is likely largely abandoned.

Hence the lack of real online community and content.
I also feel like the $BNB token and Binance exchange seem more compelling than the actual BNB chain on first glance.

That will make studying this blockchain a bit more complicated.
Despite these initial takes, I do want to dive into their dapp ecosystem, try to meet more members of the community, and double check my assumptions here.

Stay tuned as I uncover more in the coming days!

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More from @alex_valaitis

Jun 4
There are 2 important aspects to the current state of crypto that are vital that people understand:

1) The vast majority of crypto use-cases are still driven by speculation

2) Global macroeconomic trends have an outsized impact on the crypto industry

A thread 🧵
Let's start with the first point. When I gave a talk at @MiamiHackWeek this year, I asked the room:

"How many of you have used a dapp who's purpose was to do something other than to make you more $ ?"

Almost nobody in the room raised their hand...
By and large, people participate in crypto to make more $

Yes there are some compelling use cases like utility-driven NFTs, Web3 social, global payments, etc

But most of these use cases are nascent & lack critical infrastructure to be a significant improvement over alternatives
Read 13 tweets
Jun 2
I'm seeing a lot of @solana vs. @Cardano beef on my TL

Neither community seems to take the other seriously & both struggle to understand how the other project can be a top 10 coin

I studied both blockchains last month, and here's my take 🧵
What most people don't understand is that there are different dimensions upon which you can grade a blockchain.

These include: underlying tech/protocol, dapp ecosystem & usability, community, etc.

Here's how I analyze blockchains holistically 👇
web3pills.substack.com/p/how-to-explo…
IMO, @solana scores EXTREMELY high on their blockchain usability + dapp ecosystem.

It's super fast & cheap. And has a bunch of fun end-user facing use cases like their NFTs (which are 2nd to only Ethereum), DeFi dapps, and emerging use cases like @Stepnofficial
Read 12 tweets

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