This article reviews the platform coin destruction war of 2021, looks ahead to the new trends of 2025, and analyzes how BNB, OKB, and BGB have evolved from simple destruction to becoming core assets in ecological construction. (Background: Binance Charity will airdrop BNB worth 1.2 million USD to 'disaster-affected households in southern Taiwan') (Background supplement: OKX Exchange rumored 'to go public in the US', OKB surged by 13%) Those who dare to burn money have the chance to print new money. This afternoon, OKX dropped a heavy piece of news in the market — a one-time large-scale destruction of 65.25 million OKB, with a market value calculated at the current price reaching several hundred million USD. After the announcement, the price of OKB quickly surged, rising over 100% in a short time, instantly becoming the focus in a relatively sluggish market environment. This kind of fluctuation made many investors feel a sense of déjà vu. Market associations quickly returned to four years ago — 2021, the sensational 'platform coin destruction war'. At that time, exchanges repurchased and destroyed their own platform coins with real money, not only reducing market circulation and creating scarcity but also sending signals of profitability and business growth to the outside world. This was an unusually intense arms race without gunpowder: repeated destruction announcements drove up coin prices and reshuffled market capitalization rankings. Today, when OKB strikes again with large-scale destruction, the market's sentiment and memory are ignited simultaneously. The difference is that the industrial environment of 2025 is no longer the same as in previous years — global regulation is stricter, and the competitive model and ecological layout among exchanges have also changed significantly. However, this does not prevent us from asking the same question — is it still possible to see a tenfold market in today's platform coin race like in 2021? Reviewing the platform coin destruction war of 2021, we rewind the timeline back four years. From the end of 2020 to the beginning of 2021, the crypto market welcomed an epic bull market. After Bitcoin broke through the $20,000 mark, it continued to rise, and Ethereum returned to the thousand dollar range, driving the altcoin sector to explode. A large amount of speculative capital surged into low-priced, highly volatile altcoins, pushing up short-term gains and quickly igniting market sentiment. Subsequently, as the profit funds from altcoins were realized and flowed back, the transaction volume and profits of exchanges were significantly boosted. At this time, platform coins had the conditions for 'post-rise': the high profits brought by the bull market allowed exchanges to repurchase and destroy tokens on a large scale, reducing circulation and creating scarcity; while the demand for market capitalization management made exchanges willing to use destruction to showcase their strength. Leading platforms keenly captured this opportunity, using destruction as a tool for brand competition and investor confidence games. A 'destruction show of strength' catalyzed by the altcoin frenzy and supported by exchange profits thus began, allowing platform coins to complete the position transition from 'catching up' to 'leading'. In that destruction war, no one wanted to be a silent observer. The frequency, scale, and variety of actions from major exchanges were almost as stimulating as the price curves. In order to occupy a higher position on the market capitalization leaderboard, they displayed their strength to the market in different ways — some launched fierce attacks that shocked the entire scene, some chose to stabilize the rhythm to build trust, some directly confronted in the secondary market, while others relied on high-frequency presence. Ultimately, four distinct camps emerged on the battlefield, each representing a different approach: BNB, HT, OKB, and FTT. They not only shaped the landscape of platform coins in 2021 but also provided templates for later entrants to imitate or even improve. In that smoke-filled destruction war, BNB was the first cannon to fire. In April 2021, Binance burned 1,099,888 BNB at one time, worth up to $595 million at the time, setting a record for the largest single destruction in crypto history. This not only drastically reduced the circulating supply but also demonstrated to the market what 'profit realization speed' looks like. Immediately afterward, CZ threw out a more aggressive signal — completing the target of destroying 100 million coins ahead of schedule and introducing an automatic destruction mechanism, turning this action into a sustainable and predictable benefit. Such a substantial move and steady rhythm allowed BNB to rise from $37 to $690 during that year's bull market, securing a spot in the global top three by market capitalization. Similar to BNB, HT's rise was not the first wave of leadership but experienced the rhythm of 'altcoins rising first — platform coins rising later'. In January-February 2021, funds primarily flowed into hot altcoins, and when these funds returned to exchange profits and platform coins, HT welcomed concentrated explosions. From about $4 at the beginning of January 2021 to a peak close to $39 in May, an increase of nearly tenfold. OKB chose a more direct route. It eliminated the intermediate repurchase link and directly bought and destroyed in the secondary market. This approach seemed to shoot bullets directly into the price curve, reducing the space for speculators to ambush in advance while also creating a significant market impact at the moment of announcement. In 2021, OKB destroyed nearly 30 million coins in total, with the price soaring from single digits straight to $40, firmly occupying the second tier position. Source of images: CCTV interview footage. Meanwhile, FTT, as a newcomer, was clearly unwilling to lose rhythm to its established competitors. FTX chose to strike frequently — weekly repurchases and destructions, incorporating all revenues from trading fees, leveraged token redemption fees, and futures funding rates into the ammunition depot. This sense of rhythm kept it at the center of conversation during the bull market of 2021, with the price peaking at $85, just behind BNB and OKB. However, this model highly depended on trading volume, and once the market reversed, the firepower would deplete. As expected, in 2022, with the exchange crises, the story of FTT abruptly ended, falling from a star to ruins. The entire destruction war's firepower concentrated in the first four months of 2021. Between January and April, platforms such as BNB, OKB, HT, and FTT almost continuously threw out record-breaking repurchase and destruction data, with single instances often exceeding hundreds of millions of dollars, combined with high transaction volumes in the bull market, pushing coin prices higher and continuously driving market sentiment to a peak. Entering July to September, the destruction rhythm remained, but the scale was reduced compared to the first half of the year, with announcements more about maintaining expectations, and price reactions became moderate, entering a cooling phase. By the fourth quarter, as BTC and ETH entered adjustment, the trading volume of exchanges significantly decreased, leading to a decline in both the scale and frequency of destruction, and the news effect could no longer drive platform coins strongly upward, with enthusiasm quickly fading. Ultimately, this nearly year-long destruction arms race not only left steep peaks and valleys on the price curve but also reshaped the landscape of platform coins. BNB, with its dual advantages of firepower and rhythm, firmly secured the absolute leader position; OKB, with its stable mechanism and decisive execution, firmly occupied the second tier; while FTT, though once in the spotlight during the bull market, collapsed in 2022 due to its model's excessive reliance on trading volume and external conditions, becoming a cautionary case in the history of platform coins. The aftermath of this war continues to this day, providing a sobering footnote for later entrants — in the world of platform coins, those who can burn must also survive long.

#BNB #CZ