On July 28, 2025, a pair of ‘digital battle boots’ featuring the BNB logo crushed the throne of sports giants—BNB, with a market value of $119.1 billion, surpassed Nike and SoftBank, ranking 185th globally in asset rankings. This historic moment marks BNB's epic leap from 'exchange platform token' to 'infrastructure of the crypto economy.'
When the market is astonished that an 'invisible and intangible' crypto token can crush the global footwear giant, the answer lies within its ecosystem's three roaring value engines—they are driving this great migration of value from old to new thrones.
Engine One: Deflationary Flywheel, Scarcity Forged by Code
After eight years of accumulation, BNB's market value of hundreds of billions is by no means a castle in the air, as its underlying structure stands on two core pillars: a robust deflationary model and strong ecological demand.
Binance allocates 20% of its profits each quarter to repurchase and destroy BNB, with over 48 million BNB permanently destroyed to date, equivalent to 31% of the initial total amount reduced to ashes. Just this month, BNB's latest quarterly destruction announcement (the 32nd) reported the destruction of approximately 15,900 BNB, valued at about $1.024 billion.
This forms a precise mathematical logic: the higher the coin price, the greater the destruction of value, and the fewer the circulating amount—a self-reinforcing deflationary flywheel that eternally operates within the code.
Engine Two: Ecological Fission, A Value Capture Network Across All Scenarios
The core value of BNB is inextricably linked to the Binance ecosystem behind it.
Firstly, Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume globally, and the multifunctionality of BNB on the Binance exchange (payment of transaction fees, participation in Launchpool, staking, etc.) further enhances user demand for BNB. Compared to other platform tokens, BNB's actual use cases are broader, providing a solid foundation for its price.
Secondly, Binance has continuously expanded its territorial map, with BNB Chain, decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFT), decentralized science (DeSci), and even integration with the traditional world, all forming the ecological panorama of Binance.
A Prosperous On-chain Economy
With the launch of Binance Alpha, since May of this year, the DEX trading volume on BNB Chain has ranked first among global public chains, with monthly on-chain transactions increasing by 122%; the monthly active users of stablecoins have also experienced explosive growth, surpassing 15.3 million, with a monthly increase of nearly 40%.
The chart below shows the evolution of the share of various public chains in weekly DEX trading volume, where the deep blue area represents BNB Chain, indicating that BNB has become the public chain with the largest trading volume.
As the 'fuel' of Binance Smart Chain (BSC), BNB generates real consumption demand through over 2,000 DApp interactions daily. Each transaction, each stake, and each payment adds fuel to BNB's deflationary engine, allowing it to break free from an illusory narrative and become a 'cash flow asset' driven by real economic activities.
Fusion of Traditions in Exploration
Binance, through partnerships with projects like Ondo Finance and xStocks, has introduced over 100 types of U.S. stocks, ETFs, and funds into BNB Chain, achieving the tokenization of traditional financial assets.
Recently, Binance Earn launched a new capital-protected income product RWUSD, aimed at tracking the performance of real-world assets (RWA) such as tokenized U.S. Treasury bonds.
These initiatives not only promote the application of real-world assets (RWA) on the blockchain but also attract attention from the traditional financial sector, enhancing BNB's actual use cases and market demand.
In addition, BNB Chain has also accessed many traditional financial consumption scenarios, such as the restaurant brand KingoFood, the luxury shopping platform OFF-White, and software and service provider NOWNodes, making BNB an increasingly popular payment choice among merchants.
Engine Three: Capital Breaking Walls, Re-evaluation of Value in the Traditional World
As stocks meet cryptocurrencies, and multiple U.S. stock giants announce reserves of digital assets, the barriers between Wall Street and the on-chain world are being gradually broken down. Under this new narrative, the market begins to re-evaluate BNB through the lens of 'core infrastructure assets.'
Iconic events follow one after another:
The Trump family's crypto project WLFI has also deployed over 90% of its stablecoin USD1 on BNBChain. Recently, the Abu Dhabi investment institution MGX completed a $2 billion investment in Binance through USD1.
U.S. publicly traded company Nano Labs announced the addition of 8,000 BNB through OTC trading, increasing its overall holdings to 128,000 BNB, with a total market value exceeding $108 million. The future target reserve size may reach $1 billion.
U.S. publicly traded company Windtree (WINT) announced that it has signed a $60 million securities purchase agreement with Build & Build Corp, with the funds raised primarily used for acquiring BNB, initiating BNB treasury strategies with a target expansion to $200 million.
A $500 million PIPE private placement financing was completed by 10X Capital and CZ family office YZi Labs, aiming to make VAPE the largest publicly listed BNB treasury company globally.
All these indicate that BNB will detach from the identity of a purely on-chain asset and become a NAV (Net Asset Value) that can be traded at a discount/premium in the U.S. stock financial reporting system. This is the structural support for BNB's path toward $1000.
Conclusion
When BNB, with a market value of $119.1 billion, leaves traditional giants behind, it proves not just the success of a token but the rise of a new collaborative paradigm between traditional finance and on-chain economy. Behind it is the rigid support built by deflationary models and real demand, the continuous 'blood-making ability' of the Binance ecosystem (exchange + BNB chain), and the recognition leap of traditional capital towards the top assets in the crypto world.
When Nike is surpassed, who will be the next to fall at BNB's feet?