BNB (BNB) is the cryptocurrency created by Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by trading volume. It began as a discount voucher for trading fees on the exchange and is now also the native coin of BNB Chain, a blockchain network where it pays transaction fees and is staked to secure the network. By market capitalization it has long ranked among the five largest crypto assets.
BNB, the coin, should not be confused with BNB Chain, the network it runs on, or with the many other tokens issued on that network under the BEP-20 standard. Binance created the coin and still plays a large part in its ecosystem, but the network's software and validators are run separately from the exchange's trading business, a centralized exchange.
BNB in plain terms
BNB started life rather like a loyalty card for a busy shop. Traders who paid their Binance fees in BNB got a discount, which gave people a reason to hold the coin. Over time Binance built its own blockchain, and BNB became the fuel for that network too, much as tokens bought at an arcade are used to play every machine inside it.
Binance also promised that the total number of coins would shrink over time. Every few months it permanently destroys a batch of BNB, the way a company might buy back and cancel some of its own shares. Fewer coins in existence is meant to support the value of the ones that remain, although the price still depends mainly on how much people use Binance and BNB Chain.
History
Binance was founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao, widely known as CZ, and sold BNB to the public through an initial coin offering in July 2017. The coin first existed as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, with a total supply of 200 million. In 2019 it moved to Binance's own Binance Chain, and in September 2020 Binance launched Binance Smart Chain, a network that runs Ethereum-style smart contracts. The two were rebranded together as BNB Chain in February 2022, and the older Beacon Chain was later retired so that the smart-contract chain became the main network.
In November 2023 Binance pleaded guilty in the United States to violating the Bank Secrecy Act and sanctions laws and agreed to pay about $4.3 billion, one of the largest corporate penalties in US history. Zhao stepped down as chief executive, pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program, and served four months in prison in 2024. US President Donald Trump pardoned him in October 2025.
How BNB Chain works
BNB Chain is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, so applications written for Ethereum can be moved to it with few changes. Blocks are produced by a small set of validators chosen by the amount of BNB staked with them, a model the network calls proof of staked authority, a variant of proof of stake. A limited validator set lets the chain confirm transactions quickly and keep gas fees low, which helped it attract decentralized exchanges, games and memecoin trading.
Supply and burns
Binance has committed to reduce BNB's supply from the original 200 million to 100 million through token burning, sending coins to an address from which they can never be spent. Burns happen in two ways:
- Quarterly auto-burn. Since the end of 2021, the amount burned each quarter has been set by a published formula based on the number of blocks produced and the average BNB price, so that it can be checked independently instead of depending on Binance's profits.
- Real-time burn. Under a network upgrade known as BEP-95, part of the gas fees paid on BNB Chain is destroyed in every block, and this continues even after the 100 million target is reached.
The quarterly burns have regularly destroyed more than a million BNB each, and by late 2025 the total supply had fallen to under 140 million. This makes BNB one of the best-known examples of deflationary tokenomics.
Uses
- Exchange fees. Binance users can pay trading fees in BNB at a discount and use it to join token sales on the exchange.
- Network fees and staking. Every transaction on BNB Chain is paid in BNB, and staked BNB secures the network.
- Payments. BNB can be spent through Binance Pay and some card programs, and sent between wallets.
- Collateral. It is widely used as collateral in lending and trading applications on BNB Chain.
Regulation and criticism
In June 2023 the US Securities and Exchange Commission sued Binance and described BNB as a security; the agency dropped the case with prejudice in May 2025. The main criticism of BNB is its dependence on a single company: Binance created the coin, holds a large stake in it and drives most of its demand, so legal or business problems at the exchange tend to hit the coin directly. Critics also argue that a validator set of a few dozen operators makes BNB Chain more centralized than networks such as Ethereum, and the chain has suffered bridge exploits, most notably a hack of about 2 million BNB in October 2022 that briefly halted the network.