The cryptocurrency market outlook at the beginning of 2025 is rather bleak. While most tokens have yet to recover from the crash, BNB's price quickly rebounded, increasing by 41% in just ten days, leading the CeFi sector out of a rising trend. Recently, the BNB Chain ecosystem has been buzzing with hotspots, attracting much attention. Is the recent price increase of BNB merely an event-driven 'flash in the pan', or is it a re-evaluation of long-term value?

Through historical tracking and revenue disaggregation, we discovered a hidden data fact: from 2024 to the present, the 'lazy earning income' (token appreciation + new project rewards) from holding BNB has exceeded Bitcoin's performance by 50% during the same period. This article will re-examine BNB from the logic of asset value and reveal the underlying logic behind the price increase.

[Surpassing Bitcoin, the invisible winner in the cryptocurrency market]

In 2024, Bitcoin attracted global investors' attention with an impressive increase of 128%. In today's narrative-deficient environment, Bitcoin seems to have become the only consensus in the crypto industry.

In fact, apart from the glamorous Bitcoin, a fact that the vast majority of investors may not understand is that BNB, which has long ranked among the industry's market value leaders, not only outperforms Bitcoin in compound returns but also shows greater resistance to declines during the bull-bear transition cycle. If there is a myth in the cryptocurrency market that surpasses Bitcoin, then BNB must be one of the invisible winners in that myth.

1. This round of the cycle has a price increase close to Bitcoin, leading for most of the time.

According to historical data tracking from CoinMarketCap, since the listing of the Bitcoin ETF on January 11, 2024, the price increase curve of BNB has consistently led BTC in over 60% of the statistical periods, with a maximum increase of 175.73%, nearly on par with BTC.

2. Market performance far better than that of Ethereum and other altcoins.

Since the approval of the Bitcoin spot ETF, the market has shown significant polarization: traditional institutional funds have flowed into Bitcoin ETFs, pushing BTC's market value share to over 60%, creating a 'bloodsucking effect' on altcoins, with most tokens in the market languishing. In contrast, BNB has soared with a maximum increase of 175.73%, far outperforming Ethereum's performance during the same period.

3. Bull-bear cycle transformation, BNB's ability to resist declines is better than Bitcoin

We back-tested the price performance of BTC, ETH, and BNB during the last bull-bear transition period from 2021 to 2022, finding that BNB exhibited unexpectedly strong resistance to declines during the bear market:

● Maximum drawdown: BNB (-73.29%) < Bitcoin (-77.32%) < Ethereum (-81.68%). During the bear market, BNB's decline was lower than both.

● Recovery cycle efficiency: BNB took 237 days to recover its previous high, only 45.8% of Bitcoin's (517 days), indicating significant rebound momentum.

4. In the bull market flash crash, BNB performed slightly worse than Bitcoin but better than Ethereum.

Although this round of the cryptocurrency market cycle has experienced several pullbacks (January GBTC sell-off, March Fed's hawkish turn, June Mt. Gox repayment impact), the most challenging moment will be during the global financial market turmoil on August 5, 2024, when a brief dollar liquidity crisis impacted the cryptocurrency market. During this crisis, BNB's maximum drawdown was 18.40%, slightly worse than Bitcoin (15.70%) but better than Ethereum's performance.

[US stock genes, the 'super scarce asset' among the top ten market values]

BNB is currently the only token among the top ten mainstream digital assets with deflationary characteristics; its value-scarcity attributes surpass those of Bitcoin, the 'digital gold'. According to its economic model design, BNB continuously reduces its circulating supply through a quarterly burn mechanism— the most recent burn occurred on January 23, with the BNB Foundation announcing the completion of the 30th quarterly burn of BNB tokens on the BNB Chain, with a single burn of 1,634,200.95 BNB, valued at approximately $1.16 billion at the time of the burn. Since the issuance of BNB in 2017, the total token supply has been reduced from the original 200 million to 142 million, a decrease of nearly 30% in total supply, with an annual deflation rate of 4.77%. The increasingly reduced equity carries rapidly growing commercial value, making BNB one of the most long-term investment-worthy scarce varieties in digital assets (Hyper-Scarce Asset).

In contrast, other top ten cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (fixed cap of 21 million), Ethereum (dynamic issuance), USDT (anchored issuance), etc., all adopt inflationary or neutral supply models, while Solana, XRP, etc., although lacking a total supply cap, also lack an active burn mechanism.

If the long-term upward driving force of the U.S. stock market comes from strong profitability + stock repurchase cancellation, then BNB is the closest value expression to traditional finance in the digital currency space, the cryptocurrency with the most 'U.S. stock genes'. BNB achieves deflation through a series of repurchase and burn mechanisms, similar to the market value management behavior of publicly listed companies in the U.S.—buying back and canceling stocks to enhance shareholder equity. This mechanism retains the transparency characteristic of cryptocurrencies while embedding the value creation logic of traditional financial markets, making BNB a currency that combines scarcity and profit feedback, consistently ranking among the top ten in market value, confirming the market's acknowledgment of BNB's 'U.S. stock gene' model.

[Holding coins for new projects, an industry benchmark prioritizing users]

He Yi, co-founder of Binance, mentioned in a speech at Binance's 7th anniversary that 'Binance has always been user-centric, creating value for BNB holders through product design.' Binance pioneered the concept of IEO (Initial Exchange Offering) in the industry, allowing users holding BNB to participate in new project launches first, thus gaining early opportunities, which has created returns for BNB holders that far exceed the market average.

Since 2024, Binance has accurately directed platform growth dividends to BNB holders through activities such as Launchpool, HODLer, and Megadrop, rewarding loyal users of the platform. In 2024, Binance launched a total of 28 new project initiatives, including 21 Launchpool rounds, 2 Megadrop rounds, and 5 Hodler airdrops. Assuming a long-term investor holding BNB adopts a coin-based reinvestment strategy (i.e., selling newly launched coins for BNB and continuously rolling investments), combined with BNB's price growth, the overall return by the end of the year would be approximately 284%, far exceeding Bitcoin's increase of 183% during the same period. This data directly confirms what has been mentioned by the top influencer, that the mechanism of Launchpool aims to 'allow the community to share in the dividends of the platform's development'.

In 2025, the frequency of Binance's new project launches and airdrops will further increase, with six rounds launched by mid-February. The 'holding coins for new projects' model is indeed a win-win; it not only reduces market selling pressure by locking BNB but also provides users holding coins with new asset airdrops, forming a flywheel effect of 'holding coins to earn interest - reducing selling pressure - price increase'.

In 2025, the frequency of Binance's new project launches and airdrops will further increase, with six rounds launched by mid-February. The 'holding coins for new projects' model is indeed a win-win; it not only reduces market selling pressure by locking BNB but also provides users holding coins with new asset airdrops, forming a flywheel effect of 'holding coins to earn interest - reducing selling pressure - price increase'.

[SEC settlement signal, accelerator for community ecosystem innovation]

Recently, Binance and the U.S. SEC's tug-of-war has finally seen a glimmer of hope—both sides jointly submitted a motion to pause the lawsuit to the court, and Binance seized this opportunity to fully engage, running on the tracks of compliance and innovation.

First, there were actions on the technical side, with a large-scale upgrade of the BNB Chain: optimizing performance for second-level confirmations, a full suite of AI ecosystem (Agent platform + AI project incubation), and upgrades to the Meme launchpad infrastructure. The effects of this triple strike were immediate, with BNB Chain's on-chain transaction volume soaring; on February 13, BNB Chain's daily transaction fees exceeded $5.8 million, surpassing Solana's $3.3 million and more than five times Ethereum's fees. This is the first time since October 31, 2024, that a blockchain other than Ethereum and Solana has led the industry in daily transaction fees.

Accompanying this is the operational update in the content ecosystem, with the refresh of Binance Square being a 'guide to prevent retail investors from being cut'—KOLs can not only share and compete with investment strategies online but also choose the real-time holding function. Now, when you click on a major influencer's homepage, the holding ratios and trading records can be transparently displayed in real-time. These updates have received widespread acclaim from users, satisfying the underlying psychological needs of trading users for curiosity and bragging, and Binance Square is expected to further become the No. 1 portal in Crypto, greatly enhancing user stickiness.

We observed this set of combinations: technical upgrades attract developers → user explosion boosts on-chain data → community transparency enhances holding confidence. The BNB ecosystem is breaking the pessimistic narrative that Crypto only has 'memes' and is likely to become the 'third pole' of digital assets.

[Conclusion]

If Bitcoin is the gold of the crypto world, then BNB is writing its own value narrative: it is not only the 'fuel' of the platform ecosystem but also a 'value container' that deeply binds user interests, technological evolution, and compliance frameworks through mechanism design.

When the market eventually returns to rationality, this experiment on scarcity creation, capturing compound returns, and building institutional trust may become a milestone in the transition of crypto assets from the wilderness to the mainstream.

(Data as of February 2025, please refer to official disclosures for dynamic updates)