BNB Chain Q4 2024 Highlights

Messari recently released its report on the “State of BNB Chain Q4 2024.” The report provides a deep dive into BNB Chain's transformative Q4 2024, highlighting notable financial growth, technical advancements, and expanding ecosystem adoption. Here are some of the key highlights.

BNB Performance Overview

BNB Chain had a record-setting year, with BNB’s price reaching an all-time high of $789 on Dec 7, 2024. The market cap closed Q4 at $101.09 billion, marking a 22% QoQ increase and a staggering 114% YoY increase from $47.31 billion at the start of the year.

Revenue Surges, Solidifying BNB Chain as a Leading L1

• Annual Revenue: $234 million in total fees collected, making BNB Smart Chain one of the top Layer-1 blockchains by revenue.
• Q4 Revenue Growth: $44.6 million in network revenue, a 28% QoQ increase from Q3’s $34.9 million.
• Gas Fee Burn Continues: The 29th quarterly BNB burn on Nov 1 saw 1.8 million BNB ($1.07 billion) permanently removed from circulation, increasing BNB’s deflationary pressure.

DeFi & DEX Expansion: A Record-Breaking Quarter

DeFi TVL Soars to $5.35 Billion

DeFi thrived on BNB Chain, growing 53% YoY to reach $5.35 billion TVL. Although BNB’s TVL in native tokens declined 8% QoQ (from 8.3M BNB to 7.6M BNB), the increase in TVL in USD terms was largely due to BNB price appreciation.

PancakeSwap & Venus Dominate, But ListaDAO Surges

• PancakeSwap remains the largest protocol, growing 7% QoQ to $1.76 billion in TVL but saw its dominance slightly decline to 33% of BNB Chain’s total DeFi market.
• Venus Finance TVL decreased 5% QoQ to $1.7 billion, but borrowing activity nearly doubled (up 89% QoQ to $857M).
• ListaDAO’s Liquid Staking Skyrockets: The biggest winner in Q4 was ListaDAO, which saw a 174% increase in TVL (from $198M to $544M), capturing 97% of BNB liquid-staked assets.

DEX Trading Volume Explodes: Up 269% YoY

One of the most impressive growth stories of the year was the explosion in DEX trading on BNB Chain.

• Average daily DEX volume surged 122% QoQ in Q4 alone, reaching $1.29 billion.
• Annual DEX volume growth: 269% YoY, making BNB Chain the fourth-largest blockchain for DEX trading volume (after Solana, Ethereum, and Base).
• PancakeSwap continues to dominate, handling 84% of all BNB Chain DEX trading activity.
• Emerging Players: THENA, Uniswap, and DODO all posted significant QoQ volume growth, while Swaap saw a staggering 4,656% increase in trading volume.

Stablecoin & BTC Growth: Strengthening BNB Chain’s Liquidity

Stablecoin Growth

BNB Chain ended 2024 as the third-largest blockchain for stablecoins, behind only Ethereum and TRON.

• Q4 Stablecoin Market Cap: $6.84 billion (up 37% QoQ and 50% YoY).
• USDT remained the dominant stablecoin, but its market share fell from 79% to 76% due to the rise of:
  • USDX, a synthetic stablecoin, which quickly grew to $438.8M in market cap.
  • ListaDAO’s lisUSD, which increased 108% QoQ to $74.4M.

BTCFi & BTCB Adoption on BNB Chain

• BTCB Supply: Flat at 65,300 BTCB (~$6.13 billion).
• BTCB Holders Increased by 5% QoQ, surpassing 1 million users.
• BTCFi projects like Solv Finance and Lorenzo Finance gained traction, providing BTC holders with yield-earning DeFi opportunities

Technical Advancements & Network Optimizations

• BNB Beacon Chain Sunset: Migration to BNB Smart Chain completed, streamlining governance and staking.
• BEP-341 Implementation: Allowed validators to produce up to four consecutive blocks, improving throughput.
• Builder API Specification Adoption: 96% of blocks utilized the Builder API by year-end, increasing efficiency and MEV transparency.
• opBNB Growth: Total value bridged (TVB) rose 10% QoQ to $86.5 million, solidifying opBNB’s role as a leading optimistic rollup.

Security, Staking & Decentralization

• BNB Staking Shift: Following the Beacon Chain sunset, BNB Smart Chain now secures all staking.
• Total BNB Staked: Despite a 9% QoQ decrease to 29.6 million BNB, the dollar value staked rose 14% QoQ to $20.8 billion.
• Validator Expansion: Increased from 40 to 45 active validators, improving network decentralization.

Ecosystem & Developer Growth

• TVL Incentive Program: Distributed $100,000 in rewards to ListaDAO, Venus Finance, and PancakeSwap.
• MVB Accelerator (Season 8 & 9): Supported early-stage Web3 projects, emphasizing AI and DeFi.
• BNB Chain Hackathon: Over 200 projects competed, with PayNova securing first place.
• New Initiatives:
  • Gas-Free Carnival (zero gas fees on stablecoin transfers).
  • One-Stop Tokenization Solution (enabling seamless asset tokenization).
  • NFT Loyalty Program (enhancing Web3 loyalty rewards).
  • BNB as an AI-First Blockchain (expanding AI-powered Web3 tools).

The Road Ahead

With record-breaking growth, technical innovations, and increased DeFi adoption, BNB Chain remains well-positioned for 2025. Another key focus for BNB Chain in 2025 is memecoin adoption. They have launched a memecoin tokenization solution, enabling anyone to easily create and launch their own memecoins.

As we move into 2025, BNB Chain’s main goal remains the same - onboarding the next billion into Web3. For an in-depth read, check out Messari’s report here.

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