The cryptocurrency industry has seen frequent changes and transformations of late, the mainstream acceptance of NFTs and the emergence of DeFi (decentralized finance) are examples of prevalent changes. Crypto newcomers are often captivated by the price of coins, overlooking the potential of the blockchain space as a whole.
Binance Coin (BNB) is the native coin of the highly popular cryptocurrency exchange powered by the Binance Smart Chain and regularly draws comparisons to Ethereum (ETH), as both coins function in a similar way. Ethereum is often favored, as it has a higher market cap. But, what makes the community make this comparison and what advantages does each coin offer?
The price of BNB has risen dramatically during the first months of 2021, reaching an all-time high (ATH) of $565.05 on April 13th. The recent success of BNB has paved the way for a number of other exciting projects in the crypto sphere. The potential of BNB is turning the heads of crypto investors.
There are some regulations in the US which learn towards the classification of BNB as a security within the states. However, it is first and foremost an investment contract accessible through the Binance platform. The price of BNB is dependent on a third party, which is the Binance exchange. Cryptocurrencies function as replacements for sovereign currencies, so the likes of BNB and ETH are not security tokens.
Ethereum still holds the second highest price on the market, with potential for huge growth of DeFi as the biggest network out of all cryptocurrencies. We will explore the similarities and differences between this altcoin and the emerging Binance Coin.
Community
The Ethereum community includes more than 140 million unique addresses, made up of hundreds of thousands of everyday users, traders, technology enthusiasts, developers, miners, and the list goes on. The wallets holding the largest amount of ETH tend to be huge scalable projects, often with a large amount of capital behind them—examples of this would be the Hermez and Tether networks. The Ethereum network is used by a variety of different sectors, including video games companies and financial investment companies. So, although ETH boasts a bustling community of users, its focus is on a broad network of ventures and projects.
Taking a look at the data for Binance Coin, it’s clear that the vast majority of tokens are in Binance-owned wallets. It’s likely that many of the BNB tokens are held in unaffiliated addresses and do not show up on data sites. At present, there are just over 315,000 BNB holders, with the top 100 holders collectively owning just over 95% of the total coins. While the number of holders is significantly lower than what we see with ETH, the even-handed distribution lends to the idea that the community is more democratic overall.
Public Chain
Mining is definitely one of the key issues with Ethereum, with the infamous “difficulty bomb” as one of the leading concerns. The term refers to the increasing level of mining difficulty, which could lead to a point where it is impossible and unprofitable to mine Ethereum. This situation would bring about a change in the network, shifting from a Proof of Work (PoW) consensus algorithm to Proof of Stake (PoS), which would make the network fast and more scalable.
This is quite different when working with the BNB on the Balance Smart Chain. Released two years later, BNB has had time to build on any issues the older blockchains have encountered—offering faster transactions and lower fees. Binance is based on a Tendermint BFT consensus, which is a modern take on PoS and not nearly as data heavy as any PoW system. Moreover, the BNB system is Ethereum compatible, which gives users the chance to get the best of both worlds.
Use Cases
The staggering growth of the Ethereum network is due to the fact that practically any system can be run on top of it. The diversity of the system has meant that it’s seen a lot of growth in the areas of decentralized apps (DApps) and DeFi. DeFi is slowly progressing, as it competes with traditional banking methods while DApps have taken off, notably for video games and the gambling industry.
The BNB token’s were designed to function for specific uses, which range from staking to fundraising. Users are able to pay for fees on the exchange, as well as using them to make payments through Point-of-Sale systems such as TravelbyBit and PundiX. The coin is well-established, which has meant that customers are also able to pay for goods and services through Crypto.com. Binance Coin differs from Ethereum, as it was developed and has been tailored to fulfil specific functions.
Utility
The utility of Ethereum is unrivalled for the most part, outside of direct payments, the Ethereum ecosystem offers a range of utilities. As we mentioned before, ETH supports a variety of DApps, nearly 3000 in fact, as well as supporting gambling and financial systems.
While BNB is divided, offering two main utilities. It provides a centralized finance (CeFi) system, which is it’s central platform, the Binance cryptocurrency exchange. As well as that, BNB has a decentralized finance (DeFi) utility, offering the native token of Binance Smart Chain.
Conclusion
The Ethereum network is broad and has a huge community supporting it, but the majority of its use cases and utilities rely on the network of users that support them. BNB offers a different package. The fixed functionality of the network means that it is principally very versatile and has the potential to become a native token throughout the blockchain network. We touched on it before, but for all it’s utility BNB isn’t a security. However, this isn’t a bad thing. BNB could be broadly applicable to the blockchain industry. The price of BNB is rising and is continually breaking its ATH. A high price isn’t something that’s relevant to the progress of BNB, but the focus should be on the utilities and ecosystem it provides.
