Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, today rebranded its blockchain networks. In a Tuesday announcement, Binance said that Binance Chain and Binance Smart Chain (BSC) would become one ecosystem: BNB Chain.
Importantly, the move removes the company’s own name from that of its blockchain network, which in the past has been criticized for being more centralized than its competitors, such as Ethereum.
Right now, Binance Chain and BSC are two separate blockchains. Binance Chain allows people to transact on Binance’s decentralized exchange, while BSC, which has smart contract functionality, is for building decentralized applications.
But the two will be rebranded under one ecosystem as from today, Binance said. BNB will be made up of BNB Beacon Chain, previously Binance Chain, and BNB Smart Chain, the exchange said.
“Following in the footsteps of many other community-supported projects, BNB has been on its own evolutionary journey towards greater innovation and decentralization, and BNB has transcended Binance in terms of its use cases,” Binance said.
The plan, Binance said, is that the new, single blockchain will allow greater innovation. The company hopes to make BNB chain a place for the hottest crypto trends of right now—NFTs, DeFi, and the metaverse.
“Above all, BNB Chain remains a community-driven, open-sourced and decentralized ecosystem,” Binance said. “The support of its community of users, developers, validators and delegators is vital to its health. With BNB Chain gaining major technical updates, it’s time for the community to take a flight towards MetaFi.”
“MetaFi” is Binance’s umbrella term for all the latest tech projects: the metaverse, DeFi, GameFi, SocialFi, Web3, and NFTs.
BNB Chain will use Binance’s native token, Binance Coin, or BNB, to transact on the new BNB Chain. BNB is a hugely popular cryptocurrency: it is the fourth biggest digital asset in the world, with a market cap of $72 billion, and it has a 24-hour trading volume of $1.9 billion.
