Crypto Exchange Binance Burns Over $575,000,000 in BNB Following Token Update

The chief executive of the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume says that the platform has torched $575 million worth of its native asset in its latest quarterly burn.

In a new blog post, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao says that the crypto exchange has destroyed a total of 2,064,494 Binance Coin (BNB) in its 22nd overall burning event and first quarterly burn of 2023.

Binance says it plans to perform coin burns every quarter until it eliminates a total of 100 million BNB from circulation – half of the token’s overall supply. The exchange says it destroys its own utility token in an effort to reduce BNB supply and potentially increase its value.

BNB’s maximum supply did technically rise in October after a hack of the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) Token Hub bridge resulted in the minting of 2 million extra tokens.

Zhao, however, says the extra supply will be accounted for by the burns.

“The [hack] increased BNB’s maximum supply to 202 million, but 1.02 million was locked following a vote by the BNB Community’s validators and then burnt. And the rest will be burned through the usual burning process.”

BNB is trading for $302 at time of writing. The fourth-ranked crypto asset by market cap is up nearly 1% in the past 24 hours and more than 9.6% in the past seven days. It remains nearly 56% down from its all-time high of $686, which it hit in May 2021.

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