Binance Coin (BNB) breaks to new ATH, boosted by general altcoin trend

Binance Coin (BNB) finally broke out, a day after the former CEO of Binance Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao announced the official altcoin season. The asset reached a new all-time high, following the trend of other old altcoins. 

Binance Coin (BNB) rallied to a new all-time high of $772.97, before sliding back to the $760 range. Previously, BNB peaked at $707.02 during the H1 bull rally. 

Trading volumes expanded near their peak range for 2024, at above $5.49B. The current rally only traded around 5% of the supply of BNB. With a total supply of 144M tokens, BNB is seen as a potential rival to Ethereum (ETH). 

Open interest expanded to a three-year high of $1.29B, bringing BNB to the forefront for active traders. Until recently, BNB behaved as a utility token, remaining relatively stagnant similar to Ethereum (ETH). 

BNB is an internationally available and widely traded asset. The most recent ATH rally, however, took its energy from the Chinese market, along with the new all-time high for TRON (TRX) above $0.40. 

The next step for BNB would be to continue with new highs, while targeting a four-digit valuation. However, the recent price rally led to an immediate shift to long positions, increasing their share to 75%. Attacks against those positions may cut the rally short and lead to a drawdown. 

BNB was one of the assets to lag behind the rest of the market, spending years in accumulation during the bear market. BNB did not immediately reflect the primacy of Binance as the main CEX during the 2024 bull cycle. The recent rally is a delayed reaction to many months of expectation for a breakout to a new high. 

Binance’s native asset is offering 3.65% in annualized returns for staking. BNB is also needed for almost all activities and special projects on Binance, encouraging long-term holding. 

BNB felt the pressure of regulations, as Binance reinvented its approach to multiple centralized and decentralized assets. Over the course of the bear market, Binance phased out BUSD, while increasing the role of the more regulated USDC. 

The release of ‘CZ’ Zhao from his four-month sentence was one of the triggers that led to renewed demand for Binance’s services. The Bitcoin (BTC) rally to an all-time high also put Binance near the top as the leading global market, tapping EU and Asian demand. All of those factors combined led to the recent breakout. 

BNB gets a boost from CEX trading volumes

Despite all the talk of Web3 and decentralized activity, when it came to the biggest pumps and trading volumes, centralized exchanges were still the main venue. Binance led all other exchanges with inflows since January 2024. 

Binance’s ecosystem was one of the leaders in the attempts to popularize Web3, gaming, and NFTs. However, those trends proved volatile and the liquidity of centralized trading pairs was unmatched. Binance has always been the venue of pumping coins, where one active trading pair provides the main activity, leading the price discovery. 

Decentralized trading on BNB Smart Chain remains active, but has seen the impact of bot-driven sandwich attacks. Decentralized exchanges are still an important part of the Binance ecosystem, with a growing share of overall trading, but centralized pairs led the recent altcoin rally. DEXs currently take up around 27% of reported CEX volumes, though with some distrust due to bots and sandwiching exploits. 

Instead of branching out into DEXs, Binance has left PancakeSwap to thrive on its own. The exchange continues to rebuild its list of assets, recently adding a streak of meme tokens based on their liquidity and community potential. 

The presence of a Binance spot pair radically changes the trading profile of those assets, while driving more users to the exchange. As a result, in November, Binance broke above 240M registered users, while claiming its goal was to onboard the first 1B people into crypto.

Binance still carries more than $157B in reported assets on its wallets, far outstripping other exchanges as a holder of old and new coins. The exchange has also committed to sharing its transparent funds for additional reassurance. Binance’s decentralized ecosystem is much smaller, carrying only $5.89B in value locked.

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