Binance Burns Over $500 Million in BNB Tokens: Is It Coming Soon?
Major cryptocurrency exchange Binance completed its latest BNB token burn for the third quarter on Thursday, burning more than 2 million BNB tokens worth more than $500 million. The total amount of tokens burned during the quarter was 2,065,152.42 BNB and was made up of tokens burned under Binance’s Auto-Burn feature, the Pioneer Burn program, and a program where a portion of the Gas fees will be burned on every transaction, a Binance announcement said. At the time of writing, the total value of the tokens burned was $563.8 million.
Binance has officially declared that its burn programs aim to phase out 100 million BNB tokens, half of the total supply. The auto-burn formula developed by the exchange automatically calculates the number of tokens that will be removed on each burn.
“BNB Auto-Burn provides an objective, independently verifiable process that is separate from Binance’s centralized exchange,” Binance said in its recent announcement about the token-burn formula. Binance launched its token burn program for BNB in the last quarter of 2021.
At press time 10:20 UTC, the BNB token price has increased by 3.75% at $274. At the same time, other major crypto assets like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are up 3.6% and 4.2%, respectively. Year to date, BNB is down 48%, while BTC is down 59% over the same period.
BNB’s relative outperformance may indicate that investors are now less concerned about cryptocurrency decentralization than some believe. This was also noted in a new blog post from cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, in which the company said traders seem to be more comfortable now. holding its tokens on exchanges amid a “growing threat of decentralized finance (DeFi) hacking.” $413 million last year,” the publication reads, citing data from blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis.
He added that $80 million has been stolen from centralized exchanges so far in 2022, saying that DeFi now accounts for 97% of losses attributed to theft.
Meanwhile, Bitfinex’s finding is supported by recent history that has exposed issues with on-chain security.
On Oct. 6, Binance announced the suspension of deposits and withdrawals through its own BNB chain after it was discovered that a hacker transferred about 2 million BNB tokens worth about $590 million to a wallet had, which is now blacklisted. Four days later, the exchange announced that BNB Chain was back online after the exploit.