The native token of the BNB Chain, $BNB, has seen its price surge to 2-year high amid a wider cryptocurrency market rally, with leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance losing momentum over the past few months and now seemingly starting to recover.
BNB is up over 17.7% over the past week and more than 50% since the beginning of the year, despite recent challenges seen on its decentralized finance space and by Binance.
According to CCData’s latest Exchange Review report, Binance has managed to maintain its position as the largest cryptocurrency exchange throughout the bear market, and in January it recorded a spot trading volume of $437 billion after rising 2.73%, meaning its market share was of 31.3%.
When it comes to derivatives trading volumes, Binance kept on dominating with a share of 46.3% of total derivatives volumes. While the exchange kept its dominating position, it has lost market share in both spot and derivatives, according to the report.
According to a Binance spokesperson quoted by TechCrunch, its international exchange has, in February, hit its highest trading volume in six month as it recovers.
Binance has struggled across a number of sectors over the past few months, with two senior executives from the firm recently being detained in Nigeria, as the country tried to rein in on speculation in its fiat currency the naira. In response, Binance removed Nigerian naira services.
In the U.S., the cryptocurrency exchange was last year hit with a massive lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission, leading to the cryptocurrency trading platform’s U.S. arm seeing trading volumes “implode,” as they fell around 75% since the regulator’s move. Binance and its co-founder Changpeng Zhao pled guilty to money laundering charges in the country and paid a $4.3 billion fine to the U.S. Department of Justice as a result.
The exchange’s latest initiative was to launch a new fragrance called “CRYPTO,” in a bid to get women more involved in the cryptocurrency space as it celebrates International Women’s Day.
BNB, however, isn’t just centered on Binance and its support of the cryptocurrency. In the decentralized finance (DeFi) realm, BNB Chain has seen its total value locked surge by over 44% over the past month, according to DeFiLlama, as the value of the digital assets in its protocols grows.
In BNB terms, the total value locked on the BNB Chain has dropped by around 3.3% since the beginning of the year, from around 11.18 million BNB to a little over 10.8 million at the time of writing.
Featured image via Unsplash.
