Happy Friday! Binance Bytes is an initiative by the Research team to provide a quick round-up of the week.
Highlights š§µ:
1/ BNB Chain has unveiled its 2025 roadmap, introducing sub-second block times, gasless transactions, and AI-driven smart wallets, aiming to process 100 million transactions per day. Following the announcement, BNB surged 8.1%, surpassing SOL in market capitalization to become the fifth-largest cryptocurrency. The upgrade also enhances security by addressing Maximal Extractable Value attacks and improving validator coordination.
2/ Central African Republic (āCARā) President Faustin-Archange TouadĆ©ra has launched a meme-coin, $CAR, as an "experiment" to raise the country's global profile and support national development. Announced on his X account, the coin saw an initial surge but later dropped by 95% in value. This follows CARās 2022 adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender, a move that failed to attract the expected investment, with its associated "Sango" project now defunct.
3/ Franklin Templeton has expanded its OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX) to the Solana blockchain, allowing investors to access tokenized shares via the Benji Investments app. The US$594M Nasdaq-listed fund offers exposure to U.S. government securities, cash, and repurchase agreements, with its BENJI token functioning like a yield-bearing stablecoin. This move strengthens Franklin Templetonās position in the tokenized asset market, competing with BlackRockās $637 million BUIDL fund on ETH.
