BNB Surges to New All-Time High as Bitcoin Stalls Below $100K

The Binance-adjacent cryptocurrency BNB, the native token of the BNB Chain, surged to new all-time high price on Wednesday, the latest large-cap crypto

Binance-adjacent cryptocurrency BNB, the native token of the BNB Chain, surged to a new all-time high on Wednesday, as capital continues to rotate towards smaller cryptocurrencies amid bitcoin’s (BTC) stalled rally.

BNB hit a $793 session high earlier Wednesday before paring some of the gains, breaking above the $700-$720 level that posed a resistance for over three years, TradingView data shows. The token last changed hands at $730, still up 14% over the past 24 hours and outperforming BTC's 0.4% gain and the broad-market benchmark CoinDesk 20 Index’s 2.7% advance.

The action comes as bitcoin has stalled below the psychologically key $100,000 mark and traders are rotating capital to smaller cryptocurrencies, or altcoins, to chase gains. Older cryptocurrencies with regulatory overhangs, including Ripple's XRP and Tron's TRX, were among the biggest gainers over the past month as Donald Trump's election victory promises a friendlier regulatory environment towards digital assets.

BNB was originally launched by crypto exchange giant Binance in 2017 and powers the blockchain ecosystem BNB Chain, formerly known as Binance Smart Chain. It's also used as a utility token on Binance to pay transaction costs and receive discounts on trading fees.

The exchange's regulatory troubles weighed on BNB heavily through 2023. Even though crypto markets rebounded towards the year-end, BNB was still at near bear market lows around $200. Those pressures have eased by now. Binance's founder and former CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao was released from prison in September after he pleaded guilty for violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and served a four-month sentence in the U.S. The exchange also significantly boosted its compliance department, CoinDesk reported last month.

The token is also benefitting from the exchange's quarterly token burning scheme, which regularly reduces the token's supply based on the BNB Chain's blockchain activity. Last month, Binance destroyed more than 1.7 million BNB tokens – valued at $1.07 billion at the time – in one of its biggest burning events to date, the exchange reported.

User activity also rose in the BNB Chain ecosystem along with prices. Daily active addresses and number of transactions in a day recorded their strongest levels in at least three months, data by Artemis.xyz shows.