2024 Annual Report on BNB Chain

Summary

The 2024 Annual Report on BNB Chain highlights a transformative year for the ecosystem, showcasing its commitment to scalability and developer support. Major achievements include the network consolidation under the 'One BNB' multichain strategy, advancements in opBNB and Greenfield for scalability and storage, a focus on enabling BNB Chain as an AI-first chain, and the implementation of impactful initiatives like the Gas-Free Carnival and stablecoin incentives. 

Ecosystem growth is reflected in a 58.2% increase in Total Value Locked (TVL), a 17.7% rise in unique addresses, and opBNB achieving 4.7 million Daily Active Users (DAU). 

Security improvements on BNB Chain saw total financial losses from security breaches drop by 67%, from $162 million in 2023 to $53 million in 2024. The number of incidents also decreased by 66%. Furthermore, programs like the Most Valuable Builder (MVB) Program and BNB Incubation Alliance (BIA) further emphasize BNB Chain's role as a leading Web3 platform. 

This annual report offers a closer look at the key milestones, achievements, and learnings from 2024, reflecting BNB Chain’s ongoing efforts to support developers, enhance the user experience, and contribute to the wider adoption of blockchain technology.

State of Network

The BNB Chain ecosystem saw several notable upgrades and enhancements during 2024, aimed at improving performance, scalability, and user experience:

Network Consolidation: Transition to a Single-Chain Structure

• The BNB Chain Fusion has been successfully completed. This strategic shift migrated the BNB Beacon Chain’s functionalities to BNB Smart Chain (BSC) and retired the BNB Beacon Chain. The move has streamlined the network, improved efficiency, reduced security risks, and aligned BNB Chain's architecture with current technological demands and future growth.
• Users and node operators were encouraged to migrate and upgrade to v0.10.17 to ensure network compatibility.
• Changes include adjustments to validator management and transaction types, simplifying the network's operational structure.

opBNB: Enhanced Scalability and Performance

• Transaction Handling: opBNB supports a high gas limit of 100 million per second, enabling 4600 transactions per second (TPS), surpassing benchmarks like Optimism on Ethereum.
• Parallel EVM, enhanced with TxDAG:  resolves transaction conflicts by mapping dependencies and executing non-conflicting transactions in parallel. This innovation boosts efficiency and delivers an average 30% performance improvement on BNB Chain.
• PBSS (Pruned Blockchain State Synchronization): Implemented online state pruning for more efficient storage.
• Roadmap Progress: opBNB is targeting 10,000 TPS and a 10x cost reduction, with notable updates such as support for new wallets, a customized gas token, and bug fixes in the Optimism SDK.

Greenfield: Evolving Blockchain Storage

• Three forks—Hulunbeier, Ural, and Pawnee—were completed to enhance functionality and user experience.
  • Hulunbeier Fork: Added cross-chain permission features and simplified storage provider management.
  • Ural Fork: Improved bucket migration processes and resource tagging capabilities.
  • Pawnee Fork: Introduced atomic updates and refined GVG save logic for storage providers.
• The alpha version of Greendrive was launched, supporting over 30 public datasets and featuring an updated user interface.
• The BNB Attestation Service (BAS) achieved 173,499 attestations with 1,418 unique attestors.
• Additionally, we've introduced the BNB Archive Layer, built on BNB Greenfield, to provide permanent storage for historical block and blob data, ensuring long-term availability and decentralization. Unlike Ethereum and BNB's temporary blob data storage, this layer offers a decentralized, permissionless query interface for enhanced data archiving.

These updates reflect  BNB Chain's ongoing commitment to creating a robust, scalable platform for developers and users alike.

Ecosystem Activity

Daily Active Users (DAU)

In 2024, opBNB and BSC demonstrated strong daily engagement, with opBNB achieving an average DAU of 4.7 million and BSC reaching 1.12 million by the end of 2024.

BSC Unique Addresses (Total)

• During 2024, the total unique addresses on BSC grew by 17.7%, reaching over 486 million. This growth aligns with the steady expansion observed in previous quarters.

Total Value Locked (TVL)

For opBNB, TVL increased by 27.6% to approximately $19.2 million by the end of 2024, reflecting steady adoption and activity.

In 2024, BSC’s Total Value Locked (TVL) saw remarkable growth, increasing from $3.5 billion in January to $5.5 billion by the end of 2024—a growth of 58.2%.

Transactions Processed

• BSC maintained robust transaction activity, processing an average of close to 4 million daily transactions during 2024, highlighting its capacity for high throughput. This is a 2.5% increase to 2023's average daily transactions count. 

opBNB on the other hand saw an average of 7.1 million transactions being processed per day.

Average Transaction Fee 

• The average transaction fee on BSC during 2024 remained at $0.03 per transaction. BSC's fees continued to be competitive compared to blockchains like Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Avalanche.

• opBNB on the other hand, maintained an average transaction fee of $0.001 year-to-date.

These metrics showcase the continued growth and resilience of the BNB Chain ecosystem in 2024.

Security

The year 2024 demonstrated remarkable strides in enhancing BNB Chain's security framework, achieving a significant reduction in value loss. Compared to 2023, losses decreased by an impressive 67%, with total financial loss dropping from $162 million to $53 million.

During 2024, BNB Chain recorded losses of $53 million across 138 incidents, averaging $384,000 per incident, with a median loss aligning closely to the average. This is a stark improvement from the previous year, which reported $162 million in losses from 416 incidents, with an average loss of $389,000 per incident. The substantial drop in incident count—66% fewer cases—further underscores the effectiveness of the enhanced security measures.

The 2024 improvements reflect BNB Chain's commitment to fostering a safer and more secure blockchain ecosystem, demonstrating stability and resilience while continuing to address critical vulnerabilities.

Key Initiatives

Stablecoin Integration and Incentives on BNB Chain

BNB Chain has implemented several initiatives to integrate and incentivize stablecoins within its ecosystem, focusing on cost-effectiveness and ecosystem growth.

Gas-Free Carnival

To promote affordable stablecoin transfers, BNB Chain launched the Gas-Free Carnival on September 19, 2024. This initiative eliminates gas fees for transferring or withdrawing stablecoins like USDT, FDUSD, and USDC on BNB Smart Chain (BSC) and opBNB.

Key highlights:

• Supported on platforms such as Binance, Bitget, Gate.io, and MEXC, along with wallets like Bitget Wallet and SafePal.
• Includes gas-free stablecoin transfers via Celer cBridge, enhancing cross-platform transaction affordability.

This campaign aims to increase stablecoin usage and provide a seamless user experience across the ecosystem.

Encouraging TVL Growth

The TVL Incentive Program encourages DeFi projects to grow their Total Value Locked (TVL), emphasizing stablecoin and BNB staking. The program offered up to $300,000 in rewards across two challenges BNB Staking Challenge and the TVL Challenge.

These efforts underline BNB Chain’s commitment to fostering stablecoin adoption and expanding its DeFi ecosystem.

Outcome of BNB Chain’s Stablecoin Initiatives

The integration and incentivization of stablecoins on BNB Chain have yielded notable outcomes:

• Transaction Share: Stablecoins now account for 8.8% of all transactions on BNB Chain, reflecting their growing importance in the ecosystem. During the Stablecoin Retention Initiative, this figure temporarily spiked to 9.9%, demonstrating the program's impact.
• Market Share Growth: Within the first week of the initiative, BNB Chain’s stablecoin market share increased by 2.1%, indicating the success of campaigns like the Gas-Free Carnival and the TVL Incentive Program in driving stablecoin adoption and usage.

These results underscore the effectiveness of BNB Chain’s strategies in enhancing the ecosystem's appeal for stablecoin transactions and DeFi activity.

AI-First Chain

BNB Chain saw an emphasis on offering a robust platform for AI-driven applications in 2024, combining BSC’s high throughput and low transaction costs, opBNB’s rapid processing for real-time responsiveness, and BNB Greenfield’s secure, decentralized data storage. 

This integrated ecosystem reduces operational costs, enabling scalable and dynamic AI solutions while ensuring trust and privacy for users. Developers benefit from a streamlined environment to build advanced AI tools, while users enjoy high-performing, responsive, and affordable applications. 

This year, we've seen remarkable growth in AI projects flourishing on BNB Chain, including MyShell, Holoworld AI, Sleepless AI, ChainGPT, NFPrompt,, DIN, and many others. These innovative projects highlight the dynamic and thriving AI ecosystem on our platform.

Memecoin Innovation

In 2024, BNB Chain launched the Meme Innovation Battle, a groundbreaking initiative aimed at fostering creativity and sustainable growth within the meme culture ecosystem. To support this effort, a total of $1 million was pledged and distributed across two key streams:

• Meme Innovation Competition: Encouraging developers and creators to push the boundaries of meme-driven innovation.
• Trade for Airdrop Rewards Competition: Incentivizing active trading and community engagement within the memecoin space.
• LP Support: This funding is pivotal in bolstering trading stability, enhancing liquidity, and driving the adoption and success of these memecoins. By strengthening liquidity pools, it ensures smoother trading experiences, reduces price volatility, and creates a solid foundation for long-term growth in the ecosystem.

This initiative led to a noticeable increase in trading volume for popular memecoins, showcasing the growing interest and participation in the ecosystem.

By blending creativity, innovation, and community-driven incentives, the Meme Innovation Battle represents a meaningful step in aligning memecoin culture with sustainable blockchain development.

Hackathons 

BNB Chain hosted several hackathons – both online and offline in 2024. Over $2 million in prizes were given out to over 20 projects.

The BNB Chain team assisted teams with all their technical questions, supporting them through their deployment launch. All winners will have the unique opportunity for a direct interview with MVB.

Highlights of MVB, BIA, and Extended Support

BNB Chain marked significant milestones in 2024 with the successful execution of its Most Valuable Builder (MVB) Program Seasons 7 and 8, alongside the launch of the BNB Chain Incubation Alliance (BIA) to bolster Web3 project development.

Most Valuable Builder Program

The MVB Program continued to serve as a flagship initiative for fostering blockchain innovation:

• Season 7:
  • Out of over 700 applicants, 13 projects were selected.
  • Five standout projects secured investments from Binance Labs.
• Season 8:
  • The program welcomed over 500 applicants, of which 35 projects were selected.
  • This season introduced enhanced support through BNB Chain’s Launch-as-a-Service (LaaS) program, organized in collaboration with ecosystem partners.
  • LaaS offers a comprehensive suite of tools and services valued at over $250,000, covering infrastructure, security, treasury management, business growth, and marketing.

BNB Chain Incubation Alliance

In collaboration with Binance Labs, the BNB Chain Incubation Alliance was established to accelerate the growth of early-stage Web3 projects.

• Strategic Focus:
  • Designed to nurture promising blockchain startups by hosting a series of global events in collaboration with top venture capital firms, incubators, and developer communities.
• 2024 Impact:
  • Over 5 BIA events were organized, culminating in more than 12 winners being awarded.
  • Winners received direct admission to the MVB Program and extended support, including access to LaaS and the Kickstart program.

These initiatives exemplify BNB Chain’s commitment to cultivating a thriving blockchain ecosystem by empowering startups, fostering innovation, and driving Web3 adoption.

Conclusion

2024 was a year of consolidation, growth, and innovation for the BNB Chain ecosystem. The successful integration of BSC, opBNB, and Greenfield under a unified platform highlights the network’s commitment to delivering practical solutions for developers and users. Advancements in performance, scalability, and security reflect a maturing blockchain infrastructure, while the expansion of TVL, DAU, and transaction volumes underscores growing ecosystem adoption.

Initiatives like the Gas-Free Carnival, stablecoin integration, and the Meme Innovation Battle showcase BNB Chain’s ability to drive meaningful engagement and innovation in DeFi and community-driven projects. Additionally, flagship programs such as MVB and BIA highlight the platform’s dedication to fostering blockchain startups and supporting the broader Web3 ecosystem.

As BNB Chain looks to the future, its focus on creating a secure, scalable, and developer-friendly environment positions it as a catalyst for the next wave of Web3 adoption. By empowering startups, enhancing user experience, and driving technological innovation, BNB Chain is set to lead the charge in blockchain adoption for years to come.

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