Pancakeswap (cake) is booming, 24h volume passes $1.6b

On Feb. 19, the emerging Decentralized Finance (DeFi) project PancakeSwap (CAKE) hit over $1,2 billion in daily volume.

CAKE topped the list of Decentralized Exchanges (DEX) using this metric, overtaking the most popular automated market maker (AMM) on Ethereum (ETH), Uniswap.

Currently, PancakeSwap has more than $1,6 billion passing through the platform per day, according to CoinGecko.

Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and CAKE to Shoot Down Ethereum?

Since Ethereum gas fees have remained high, PancakeSwap has managed to outperform Uniswap in a matter of days. On Feb. 15, it became the world’s second-largest DEX, successfully outperforming another Ethereum-based rival SushiSwap. A drastic surge in trading volumes on PancakeSwap has caused massive demand for its native CAKE token.

Since then, CAKE has risen over 150% and sits at around $19 per coin at press time. Its trading volumes have been notably impressive, up 700% from $125 million on Feb. 16. to almost $900 million on Feb. 19. The token’s market capitalization has just topped $2 billion.

The ongoing fuss surrounding the biggest BSC project has fueled the gains behind Binance’s own blockchain, which recently saw a record number of transactions surpassing 2 million.

Such an exponential rise is likely credited to low fees, which attract traders seeking cheaper alternatives to expensive Ethereum smart contracts. This is something that Ethereum is yet to solve at scale.

Binance Coin (BNB) Rockets to New Heights

Binance Coin is also benefiting from the highest-ever attention on BSC. BNB has already jumped into the top three cryptocurrencies by market capitalization at $296 per token after gaining 50% in 24 hours. BNB is the native token of the Binance exchange and serves to process BSC transactions, similar to ETH on Ethereum.

Due to the influx of traders flocking to BSC’s DeFi alternatives, BNB has overtaken other popular tokens, such as XRP, Cardano (ADA), and Polkadot (DOT). Even the leading stablecoin Tether (USDT), which has held the third position for quite some time, has been overtaken.

XRP, which was $2 billion ahead of BNB in terms of market cap at one point, now ranks seventh in the top 100. This is the first time in nearly four years that Binance Coin has broken into the top three.