BNB burns will now better reflect DeFi activity on Binance smart chain

Crypto exchange Binance has made changes to how it removes Binance coins (BNB) from circulation, a process known as burning, to better reflect their usage in the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) ecosystem, it said in a blog post-Thursday.

The Binance Smart Chain, introduced April 2020, is a network for decentralized finance (DeFi), a financial system based on smart contracts rather than middlemen for services like lending, trading, and borrowing. Binance coins are used to pay transaction fees on BSC and allow holders to make changes and additions to protocols running atop the chain.

The new system, dubbed Auto-Burn, will occur continuously and replace a quarterly burning schedule that reflected the tokens’ usage on various trading products offered by Binance’s centralized exchange. A real-time burning system that removed a portion of the gas fees spent on BSC remains in place.

The move aims to provide more transparency for the broader BNB community and is independent of revenues generated on the Binance exchange, the world’s largest by volume, through the use of BNB, the company said.

“Our announcement of the BNB Auto-Burn is a natural next step in BNB’s journey and will help the BNB community grow through providing greater autonomy, transparency, and predictability,” a Binance spokesperson told CoinDesk.

Under Auto-Burn, burns will be based on price and supply-demand dynamics for BNB using on-chain information from BSC. So as the BNB price falls, the amount of BNB burned increases to ensure the value removed remains constant and is independent of market movements.

Burning BNB, which involves sending tokens to an inaccessible wallet, effectively removes them from circulation forever. It was initially introduced as a mechanism to accrue value and grow Binance. But as the broader crypto market grew and Binance Smart Chain was launched, BNB found uses beyond simply being an exchange token. It is the third-largest coin by market value, according to CoinMarketCap data, behind only bitcoin and ether. It was trading at about $530 in European hours on Thursday morning.

As of Thursday, DeFi on BSC is a $17 billion market, DeFi Llama data show, with over 231 protocols operational on the network.

BNB Auto-Burn will be halted when the total circulation of BNB drops below 100 million. BNB currently has a 168 million circulating supply.