Key highlights

• During Q1, 2024, BNB Chain remained committed to its ‘One BNB’ multichain solution strategy.  This 'One BNB' solution integrates BSC, opBNB, and Greenfield to meet all decentralized computing and storage needs of Web3 Dapps in one holistic solution, making BNB Chain a preferred choice for Web3 developers.
• In Q1, BNB Smart Chain averaged 1.4 million Daily Active Users (DAU), making it the largest Layer 1 (L1) blockchain by daily active users. It holds the second-highest position across the entire blockchain industry, second only to BNB Chain’s L2, opBNB.
• The total number of unique addresses on BSC increased by 5.3% in Q1 to 435 million, leading among EVM-compatible blockchains in daily new unique addresses. 
• From January 1 to March 31, 2024, the average daily transaction count on BSC was 4.1 million, ranking it second-highest in this metric among blockchains.
• opBNB is the number one blockchain by DAU. The total distinct addresses on opBNB crossed 20 million in Q1 2024.
• BNB Greenfield experienced three forks, Hulunbeier (January 26, 2024), Ural (March 5, 2024), and most recently Pawnee (March 22, 2024). These forks are part of Greenfield’s continued enhancements which focus on simplifying user experiences, such as easing the process of creating buckets and improving off-chain authentication solutions.
• Overall, there was a substantial decrease of 55.8% in incident-related value loss compared to the same period last year.
• BNB Chain continued to commit to community development and accelerating the adoption of Web3 by offering rewards to the community through its builder support program.

Introduction

Q1 of 2024 witnessed significant strides for the BNB Chain ecosystem. With an unwavering commitment to its 'One BNB' multichain solution strategy, BNB Chain solidified its position as a frontrunner in decentralized computing and storage. Integrating BNB Smart Chain (BSC), opBNB, and Greenfield into a unified platform, BNB Chain emerged as the preferred choice for Web3 developers seeking comprehensive solutions. 

This report delves into the key highlights and achievements of the BNB Chain ecosystem during the first quarter of 2024, showcasing its exponential growth and continuous innovation.

Tech and Product Update

BSC

• The BNB Beacon Chain testnet conducted its first Sunset Upgrade, slated for block height 50,121,232, estimated to occur on March 4th, 2024, at 6:00 (UTC). 
• This upgrade, part of the BNB Chain Fusion initiative, aims to integrate Beacon Chain features into BSC, transitioning from a dual-chain to a single-chain structure. Users have been encouraged to complete migration as soon as possible 
• Users and full-node operators are advised to upgrade to v0.10.17 by the specified date to ensure continued network compatibility. 
• Notable changes include the disabling of certain transactions and adjustments to validator management. 

opBNB

opBNB is known for its impressive transaction handling capabilities. It is engineered to support a substantial gas limit of 100 million per second, enabling it to process approximately 4600 transactions per second (TPS). In comparison, Optimism on Ethereum achieves around 700 TPS with a lower gas limit. Furthermore, opBNB focuses on accelerated transaction finality, crucial for platforms requiring quick confirmations, such as high-frequency DeFi platforms and Web3 gaming applications.

To further augment its scalability, opBNB is set to incorporate several key technological updates. 

• PBSS (Pruned Blockchain State Synchronization) enhances the blockchain's efficiency by introducing an online state pruning feature, effectively managing storage size while avoiding the complexities of offline pruning operations.
• Implementation of Parallel EVM, which dramatically boosts transaction processing capabilities. By enabling multiple Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) instances to run concurrently on separate threads, Parallel EVM allows independent transactions to be processed simultaneously. 

The following are other updates that opBNB achieved during Q1 2024:

• opBNB launched its roadmap. The team is aiming for 10,000 TPS and being 10X cheaper.
• Opnode op-geth has successfully merged with the latest Optimism OP Stack code
• The team will work on a path-based storage system (PBSS) solution for opBNB after the v0.3.0 update. PBSS will optimize blockchain storage for opBNB
• The opBNB Bridge now supports Bitget Wallet and Binance Web3 Wallet
• The team is currently working on a customized gas token for opBNB
• Our ever-vigilant team pointed out a bug in the eth-optimism SDK. The OP Labs team has since fixed this issue and publicly thanked our team
• The team is also testing the “fault” proof of OPStack.

Greenfield

BNB Greenfield experienced three forks, Hulunbeier (January 26, 2024), Ural (March 5, 2024), and most recently Pawnee (March 22, 2024). 

The BNB Greenfield blockchain has undergone three significant forks to enhance its functionality and user experience: the Hulunbeier, Ural, and Pawnee forks.

Hulunbeier Fork introduced new features such as the Greenfield Cross-Chain Permission Module and a simplified process for Storage Provider exits. It also implemented data recovery for existing Storage Providers and improved the performance of the Blocksyncer.

Ural Fork enhanced user capabilities and storage management. It allowed permitted accounts to assign tags to resources and improved bucket migration processes. Additionally, it introduced restrictions on the use of illegal special characters during object creation.

Pawnee Fork introduced support for atomic updates and the ability to delete objects in their created status. For Storage Providers, it refined the update mechanisms for GVG save logic and added more comprehensive information to the status API.

Each fork brought specific enhancements targeting both user interfaces and backend operations, continuously improving the overall infrastructure and capabilities of the BNB Greenfield blockchain.

Other updates:

• BAS or BNB Attestation Service successfully obtained 173,499 attestations with 1,418 unique attestors. BAS assists users in on-chain or off-chain verification, allowing them to assert ownership of attestation by storing them in Greenfield.
• In February, the 1.0 alpha version of Greendrive was launched, featuring an updated user interface and enhanced stability. This version now supports over 30 public datasets across various sectors, including medi, auto, finance, robotics, natural language processing (NLP), and computer vision (CV). Greendrive's GitHub repo has changed to this. Find the latest version release here.

Security

Q1 2024 for BNB Chain paints a promising picture of continuous improvement and advancement in its security measures. The statistics show a significant decrease in value loss, falling by 55.8% from the same period last year. In Q1 2024, BNB Chain experienced a loss of $14,446,914 across 43 incidents. This comes in at an average loss of $335,974 per incident and a median loss of $151,476 and is vastly improved when compared to the previous year's loss of $32,661,970 across 140 incidents in Q1 2023.

This substantial reduction in loss signals the successful implementation of enhanced security measures, making BNB Chain a safer and more secure ecosystem. Even when compared to the previous quarter – Q4 2023, which came in at $14,544,665 across 44 incidents – the loss was steady, with only a minor difference. The detailed analysis can be found here. 

Daily Active Users

When looking at the average 7-day DAU, it is evident that both opBNB and BSC are leading with opBNB achieving a 2.9m average DAU and BSC achieving a 1.4m average DAU at the end of Q1 2024.

BSC Daily Active Users — BScScan

The average Daily Active Users (DAU) on BSC for Q1 2024 was approximately 1.4m, this is a 27.3% increase from Q4 2023’s average of 1.1m DAU.

BSC Unique Addresses (Total) — BScScan

Between January and March 2024, the total unique addresses on BSC increased by 5.3% to 435 million addresses. This increment remains in line with the previous quarter’s increase of 5.7%. 

BSC Daily New Addresses (Daily)  — BScScan

In Q1 2024, the average daily increase in unique addresses on BSC was approximately 242k addresses, this is a slight decrease from Q4 2023 where the daily increase in unique addresses was approximately 243k.

The chart above shows the TVL and DAU over 30 days during Q1. For the most part, opBNB managed to attract more than 3 million DAU. A significant jump in DAU was observed during March where it went from less than 2 million to over 3 million.

Total Value Locked (TVL)

BSC TVL — Defilllmma 

In the same period, the Total Value Locked (TVL) on BSC increased from $3.49b in January to  $5.96b at the end of Q1 — a 70.8% increase. For context, the increase in TVL was 23.8% in Q4 2023.

BNB Daily Price (USD) — BScScan

The increase in TVL is also related to the increment in BNB’s price. During Q1 2024, the price of the BNB token increased by 93.5% — doubling the increment in Q4 2023 (42.9%). In the same period, market capitalization also grew by 93.5% to $43.7 billion in that quarter. 

BNB Market Capitalization (USD) — BScScan

DAU & TVL Trend of opBNB — opBNBScan

For opBNB, the TVL increased by 19.9% to approximately 18 million by the end of Q1. 

Transactions Processed

BSC Daily Transactions  — BScScan

BSC has maintained a robust Q1 2024 performance, processing an impressive average of 4.1 million transactions daily while maintaining high speed.

BSC Average Transaction Fee  — BScScan

During Q1, the average transaction fee for BSC stayed between an average of $0.17 per transaction. Contextually, the average gas fees in Q1 2024 were cheaper than blockchains such as Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Avalanche. 

opBNB Daily Transactions — opBNBScan

On the other hand, in Q1, the total number of daily transactions for opBNB hovered between 3 million and 5 million for the most part.

It is worth noting that the total distinct addresses on opBNB crossed 20 million in Q1 2024.

State of BNB Greenfield

Greenfield Q1, 2024 Growth

In Q1 2024, BNB Greenfield enhanced its functionality and user interface through three major forks, while its network storage data size impressively crossed 415 GB. The implementation of numerous features focused on improving user capabilities and backend operations, underlining BNB Greenfield's commitment to enhanced performance. New projects have emerged from SocialFi and DeFi to Web3 gaming. For users, new developments and enhancements delivered improved user experiences, seamless functionalities, and robust solutions across the BNB Chain ecosystem.

The network storage data size has crossed 415 GB.

Daily stored data size reached a peak of 33.84 GB on February 22, 2024, in Q1.

Additionally, 8 proposals were passed for Greenfield with 7 accepted and 1 rejected.

Insights on BNB Chain’s Incentives & Support

MVB

In Q1 of 2024, Binance Labs, the venture capital and accelerator arm of Binance, concluded the selection process for Season 7 of the Most Valuable Builder (MVB) Accelerator Program. This 10-week program, jointly conducted by BNB Chain and Binance Labs, aimed to support early-stage Web3 builders in advancing the BNB Chain ecosystem. Notably, CMC Labs joined as a strategic partner for this season. Season 7 introduced two tracks: the MVB Startup Track and the MVB Founder Track. 

Season 7 Cohort:

The selection process for Season 7 was highly competitive, with over 700 applicants vying for admission. Ultimately, 1.8% of the applicant pool, representing 13 promising projects, were admitted to the MVB Season 7 Accelerator. The participants for MVB Season 7 included:

DeFi 

BitU is a crypto-native collateralized stablecoin protocol that leverages off-chain liquidity and efficiency to deliver higher yields.

Blum is a hybrid exchange, offering universal token access through gamification within a Telegram mini-app. 

Surf is a liquidity hub for all long-tailed exotic assets such as leverage trading for smaller cap coins, premarket trading, points trading, and many more. 

Vooi is a cross-chain perp DEX aggregator supporting EVM and non-EVM chains.

Infra 

Aggregata is scaling the decentralized value of AI Data, powered by DePIN-driven aggregation. 

Nesa is the lightweight Layer-1 executing critical AI inference on queries that require a high degree of privacy, security, and trust using ZKML on-chain.

Nimble is a composable AI protocol that enables ML models and data to be combined and used by AI agents, data providers, and compute resources. 

Application Layer

Aspecta is an AI-powered platform for the developer economy's new paradigm, empowering individual developers and ecosystem growth.

Holoworld is a decentralized AI character marketplace and social platform where anyone can create powerful, intelligent AI bots with a few clicks.

Opinion Labs is building dynamic opinion and continuous prediction markets.

Side Quest is a gaming and social platform with a robust community.

Story Chain is an innovative multi-level AI-based dApp that fosters collaborative storytelling.  

Tilted is a TikTok-like marketplace to buy, sell, and trade game assets, skins, and NFTs on-chain.

Throughout the program, participants had access to expert sessions presented by industry leaders and subject matter experts. At the culmination of the 10-week accelerator, the 13 project teams showcased their progress and pitched their projects to investors at Demo Day.

Previous Successes:

The success of previous seasons underscored the significance of the MVB program. In the preceding season, 12 projects were incubated, with Binance Labs investing in four top-performing projects: AltLayer, KiloEx, Kinza, and Sleepless AI. These projects have either become integral to the BNB Chain ecosystem or experienced substantial growth within it.

Daily Active Users (DAU) incentive

As part of our ongoing commitment to fostering growth and innovation within the BNB Chain ecosystem, we are delighted to present the outcomes of the Q1 DAU Incentive Program. This initiative aims to reward projects from a prize pool of up to $200,000 per phase.

During Q1, the prize pool amounted to $135,000, derived from the accumulated gas fees of participating projects. Participating projects were meticulously ranked based on their average DAU for the first epoch. The top five projects were subsequently awarded a portion of the prize pool corresponding to their ranking.

Here are the winning projects and their respective rewards:

These projects have demonstrated exceptional performance and contribution to the BNB Chain ecosystem. Phase 2 of the DAU Program has recently been announced and projects are strongly encouraged to apply. 

Total Value Locked (TVL) incentive

In Q1, Phase One of the Total Value Locked (TVL) Incentive Program aimed to motivate DeFi projects to enhance their TVL on opBNB. The event period concluded with the identification of the top-performing projects, which demonstrated significant growth in TVL during the designated time frame.

The following projects emerged as winners from the first phase of the BNB Chain TVL Incentive Program in Q1:

Phase Two of the TVL program commenced at the end of Q1, boasting a prize pool of up to $160,000. While the outcomes of the second phase are pending announcement at the time of this writing, the program's impact has been notable. BSC witnessed a notable surge in momentum, evident from a substantial increase of over 1.2 billion in Total Value Locked (TVL).

By incentivizing TVL growth, BNB Chain reaffirms its commitment to supporting and nurturing projects within its ecosystem. These initiatives not only drive innovation but also foster collaboration and community engagement, ultimately contributing to the collective advancement of the BNB Chain ecosystem. 

Airdrop Alliance

In Q1 of 2024, BNB Chain introduced the Airdrop Alliance Program, a collaborative initiative aimed at rewarding and engaging our vibrant community. The Airdrop Alliance Program exemplifies our commitment to community empowerment and collaboration. Through strategic partnerships with select projects, we facilitated exclusive airdrops for retroactive users on BSC and opBNB. 

The program saw participation from a curated selection of high-quality projects that have yet to issue tokens. Among the notable partners were StarryNift, zkPass, Kiloex, GombleGames, Web3Go, Cellula, and Ultiverse. Each project brought unique offerings to the table, contributing to the diversity and richness of the program:

These airdrops not only rewarded our community members but also fostered stronger ties within the ecosystem.

Q1 Hackathon – Building Smart and Fully-On-Chain Applications

The BNB Chain 2024 Q1 Hackathon was a testament to the vibrant developer community and innovative spirit within the BNB Chain ecosystem. This section provides a comprehensive overview of the hackathon's outcomes, including prize winners, notable projects, and future opportunities for developers.

The hackathon received an overwhelming response, with over 700 entries submitted by developers from around the world. From these entries, 12 projects were selected to advance to the demo round, where they competed for top honors and prizes. A total of $50,000 in prizes was awarded for Q1’s hackathon:

In addition to cash prizes, winners were granted a comprehensive Kickstart program package valued at $50,000, including credits from AWS, Google Cloud, and other valuable development tools. Furthermore, all winners gained direct entry into the prestigious Most Valuable Builder (MVB) program, offering further support and opportunities for advancement. 

New Projects on BNB Chain in Q1 2024

Here are some of the projects that have launched in the BNB Chain ecosystem.

Conclusion

As we conclude the Q1 ecosystem report for BNB Chain, it's evident that the platform has witnessed remarkable growth and progress. From record-breaking Daily Active Users (DAU) on BSC to the relentless pursuit of innovation with opBNB and Greenfield, BNB Chain has demonstrated its unwavering commitment to fostering ecosystem growth and success. With substantial investments, strategic initiatives, and a vibrant community of developers and users, BNB Chain is poised for even greater achievements in the upcoming quarters. As we look ahead, let's continue to build, innovate, and drive the evolution of decentralized technologies together on the BNB Chain platform.

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