Key Takeaways
- BNB token price surged by 15% to a new weekly high of $722.
- The price surge was attributed to the MyShell IDO launched to bring back the meme frenzy on BSC.
- Binance also sold most of its reserves in BTC and ETH without touching its BNB reserves.
BNB, the native token of the Binance Smart chain (BSC), surged over 15% on Wednesday despite market-wide bearish tendencies to a new weekly high of $722.
The recent price boost is attributed to the recent push to make the BSC chain the hub for memecoins with the launch of the initial DEX offering (IDO) for MyShell, the Binance Wallet.
Binance’s Myshell IDO Boosts BNB Price
The ongoing meme frenzy in the 2024-25 bull cycle has seen Solana, Tron, Base, and Ripple rise to the top of DEX activity charts, all thanks to the current trend of creating new meme tokens.
While BSC has had a fair share in the meme frenzy, it now aims to bank on the rise of Meme on the BSC chain. MyShell, an AI meme token, has been at the center of meme discussions on social media, and BSC chain IDO not only helped the meme token price surge but also boosted the price of BNB.
Social media observers called it another form of Binance’s marketing, suggesting the IDO idea seems more likely to have come from Binance to boost its meme presence.
“This is a ‘solidly calculated plan’, and it will change the flow of token launching of Binance. MyShell is still on hype; Not only hype, MyShell is what the whole of Binance cares about the most for now. It’s the future.”
The IDO would see a total sale of 40,000,000 Shell tokens, which is 4% of the total supply.
The hype around AI memecoin IDO also helped boost the price of several meme tokens in the broader BNB Chain ecosystem—tokens like CAKE, BAKE, TST, CAT, and THE witnessed substantial price increases on the day of the IDO.
Binance Dumps 99% of its BTC & ETH Reserves, BNB Untouched
The newly released Binance reserve report suggests that the largest crypto exchange sold most of its Bitcoin and Ether reserves in January.
According to data, Binance sold 94% of its Bitcoin reserves, 99.9% of ETH, and 99% of SOL in January, though these were profits, not customer funds,
The liquidation of funds created panic among crypto enthusiasts. The global crypto exchange has only kept a tiny amount of Bitcoin and most of its BNB. It’s now mainly holding only customer deposits and has barely any long exposure.
The sale of all assets except for BNB also boosted the price of the BSC chain’s native token.
However, in an X response, the exchange claimed that the January sales of nearly $8 billion assets were simply an adjustment in the Binance treasury.
Prashant Jha is a seasoned crypto journalist based in Delhi, India, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science Engineering. Passionate about the evolving world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, he has been a dedicated voice in the industry since 2018. Prashant’s expertise lies in regulatory reporting, where he unravels complex legal and financial developments with clarity and precision. Before joining CCN in 2024, he honed his craft at Cointelegraph, establishing himself as a trusted name in crypto journalism.
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