Binance Smart Chain has quickly become one of the strongest contenders to Ethereum’s blockchain. Although, currently there are 66 dapps listed on BINANCE Smart Chain (BSC) tracked by DappRadar, a couple of projects are actively changing the leaderboard in the world of DeFi.

At the moment we see increasing transaction volumes and unique active wallets, but this could very well be just the beginning of the BSC era. New investment initiatives might help to strengthen the position of Binance Smart Chain even more in the future.

Within this overview, we will analyze transaction volume and daily active wallets of the dapps operating on BSC and compare them with Ethereum’s top dapps. 

• BSC generated $15 million in terms of transaction volumes in January. $24 billion in February and counting.
• The chain is the third largest blockchain in terms of unique active wallets with the daily unique active wallet of 50,000 at the moment of writing.
• Venus has become the biggest dapp on BSC in January with $14 billion in transaction volumes. At the moment of writing, Venus positioned itself in the number one position in terms of transaction volume, thanks to more than $24 billion in the last 7 days.
• PancakeSwap is the second-largest dapp in terms of unique active wallet across the entire DeFi industry at the moment of writing.

Binance Smart Chain getting closer to Ethereum’s heights

Within the six months of existence, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) has shaken the blockchain industry with new interesting projects. The chain has distributed several DeFi dapps, which have empowered the protocol to grow quickly. Two DeFi dapps that stand out in terms of unique active wallets and transaction volumes are PancakeSwap and Venus.

Looking at the active user base of the top blockchains, BSC already surpassed WAX and EOS in January. At the moment Binance Smart Chain has more than 50.000 active wallets per day, which is only 18.000 less than Ethereum.

Alongside, the $BNB token price saw its highest value in history, reaching more than $122. The price of the token has doubled in value in the last 7-days, which puts emphasis on the activity taking place on the network. With active wallets and transaction volumes increasing, demand for $BNB is likely to grow as well.

$24 billion in February and counting

Binance Smart Chain generated approximately $15 billion in total transaction volume in January 2021. The biggest contributors were two DeFi dapps: PancakeSwap and Venus. These generated $1 billion and $14 billion respectively.

Venus was responsible for the lion’s share of the trading volume in January and continues to show its move upwards in February 2021 as well. With $24 billion in transaction volumes, Venus is now the largest dapp in terms of transaction volumes, according to the DappRadar Rankings.

If the number continues to grow at the same pace, BSC might overtake Ethereum this month, and record the highest transaction volumes in the industry.

Comparing the two: Top BSC and Ethereum dapps

Ever since the DeFi Summer of 2020, the DeFi ecosystem has been mostly centered around the Ethereum blockchain. Even though the DeFi ecosystem on Ethereum is still the strongest in the blockchain world, a couple of BSC dapps have already overtaken key positions in the charts. 

Venus is now the number one dapp in terms of transaction volumes. Within the last 7 days, they generated more than $24 billion. At the same time Curve, which is the second-largest dapp and exists on the Ethereum blockchain, has generated just over $18 billion.

In terms of unique active wallets, PancakeSwap climbed into second place and is only 12,000 users behind Uniswap. 

The reasons behind such a surge could be that PancakeSwap added more gamification recently, adding non-fungible tokens (NFTs), profiles and teams. Through these playful elements they want to onboard new users into the DeFi ecosystem while giving them early access to liquidity pools, and exclusive digital collectibles. They will even hand out governance credits for top users in the near future. 

Binance is building the bridge to Polkadot

The impressive results in terms of transaction volumes and unique active wallets are not the only metrics to look for. Binance continues to look for new growth opportunities.  At the end of 2020, Binance announced a $10 million fund to support projects in the Polkadot ecosystem. The positive vibes surrounding this announcement could also be seen in the value of DOT, the Polkadot token, which reached new heights of more than $20 in 2021. 

Recently, Binance Labs announced $2.4 million funding for Plasm Network, which is a multi-virtual machine scalable smart contract platform on Polkadot. This funding will help the network to expedite research, expand the resources and increase development. But most of all this investment builds a bridge between the Binance and Polkadot communities. 

In summary

In January BSC reached new heights in terms of transaction volumes and unique active wallets. If the trend continues in February, BSC might become the number one blockchain in terms of transaction volume.

Furthermore, Binance corporation continues looking for new ways to grow. The newest investment initiatives with the Polkadot network might help to strengthen their position even more in the future.

Useful Links:

• Binance Smart Chain Dapps
• January 2021 Dapp Industry Report
• JulSwap Transaction Volume grows 1000%