Author: Yue Xiaoyu
Recently, major exchanges have been very active, with OKX strongly pushing $OKB and Bitget designating $BGB as the token for the Morph public chain.
Why are exchanges making moves on their platform tokens recently?
On one hand, it is due to the relaxation of regulations by U.S. authorities, prompting everyone to seize the current window of opportunity to empower platform tokens and pave the way for the future;
On the other hand, it is due to the trend of integration between cryptocurrencies and stocks. The platform tokens of exchanges can be considered some of the few truly valuable assets in the crypto space, supported by real business operations, and the value of platform tokens is being re-evaluated by the market.
Let’s take a closer look at the top 5 players in this exchange platform token battle to gain a comprehensive understanding of the overall situation.
Binance's $BNB
Binance started empowering BNB early on, and the application scenarios for BNB are the most extensive among all exchanges.
From the exchange's Launchpad/Launchpool for new projects, to wallet's Alpha new projects, and to gas fees on the BSC chain, BNB carries the value accumulation and liquidity of multiple business lines within the Binance ecosystem.
This is also why BNB has long surpassed a market cap of 100 billion, ranking among the top three cryptocurrencies in the entire blockchain industry.
In the future, Binance will continue to delve deeper into the forefront of on-chain and asset issuance, with BNB being an extremely important vanguard and value connection tool.
OKX's $OKB
OKX's exchange business and wallet business should be viewed separately.
The exchange business of OKX is foundational, but it has always been overshadowed by Binance, not only failing to break through but also facing many issues regarding listing new coins, which has drawn criticism from the community.
However, OKX has taken a different approach, laying out its on-chain business early on, and its Web3 wallet can be said to be far ahead, already occupying the traffic entrance of the Web3 world.
Unfortunately, OKX's public chain ecosystem has always been lacking, far inferior to the BSC ecosystem.
This has led to a shortfall in the empowerment of $OKB, which does not have the wealth effect like $BNB.
OKX has recognized this issue, and therefore has recently started to strongly boost $OKB, activating the X Layer public chain ecosystem through the coin price.
As a result, we can see that many projects have emerged in the X Layer public chain ecosystem leveraging this momentum.
In the long run, $OKB is very important for OKX's strategic positioning and will not be easily abandoned; there are definitely still opportunities.
Bitget's $BGB
Bitget has been integrating its ecosystem, first merging the wallet token $BWB from Bitget Wallet into $BGB, and now designating $BGB as the token for the Morph public chain.
Bitget and OKX are somewhat similar: they are also very strong in wallet business, having achieved a leap in wallet operations through the acquisition of Bitkeep; however, they have shortcomings in public chain operations.
Previously, Bitget supported its own public chain Morph, but it has faced ongoing issues. Now, they have personally stepped in, directly connecting exchange operations, wallet operations, and public chain operations through $BGB.
Overall, Bitget is also a very strong exchange. Recently, $BGB has already seen a significant surge, and it continues to release positive news, making it a strong competitor in this exchange platform token battle.
Bybit's $MNT
Bybit actually does not have an official platform token; $MNT is the public chain token for the public chain Mantle supported by Bybit.
However, Bybit has a deep connection with Mantle:
In 2021, Bybit established its own DAO called BitDAO, capitalizing on the popularity of DAOs. The goal of this DAO is to build a crypto treasury, with Bybit injecting hundreds of millions of dollars.
The native token of BitDAO is BIT, and Bybit holds a large amount of BIT tokens.
Why establish a DAO?
It is primarily a compliance issue, attracting community participation through the DAO format to avoid potential legal issues with centralized platform tokens.
However, while solving the compliance issue, it has actually triggered many problems: Bybit cannot directly integrate its business through BIT tokens, cannot empower directly, and lacks a competitive tool against other exchanges.
Therefore, in 2023, BitDAO transformed into Mantle Network and converted BIT tokens to MNT tokens at a 1:1 ratio.
Now, the Mantle chain has become even quieter, and the price of MNT tokens is quite disappointing.
In summary, among the leading exchanges, Bybit's platform token is the weakest, but Bybit may also take action in the future, making it a value opportunity.
Gate's $GT
First of all, is Gate one of the top five exchanges?
This point is still debatable; it is well-known that exchanges claiming to be in the top five actually number around ten.
However, Gate has also been very strong in this cycle, with a significant voice in the community, and its contract trading volume indeed ranks in the top five.
Compared to OKX and Bitget, Gate's on-chain business is not as impressive, but it is still strong: it has its own public chain GateChain, and the Gate Wallet business is also continuously developing.
In summary
From the perspective of the usage scenarios of platform tokens, the leading exchanges share a common direction: integrating multiple business lines, empowering platform tokens, and achieving artificial deflation through methods such as token burning to boost coin prices, further activating their public chain ecosystems.
Aside from Binance, the public chain ecosystems of the other leading exchanges are actually not very strong, but everyone is making efforts:
The strongest is OKX, which is empowering X Layer;
Next is Bitget, which is changing leadership and integrating Morph;
Following that is Bybit, which has Mantle but is lukewarm;
Finally, there is Gate, whose public chain and wallet businesses have not achieved remarkable results.
In terms of market capitalization of platform tokens, Binance's BNB is the only one exceeding 100 billion, while the platform tokens of other exchanges hover around 5 billion dollars, indicating significant room for growth.
Who will become the next platform token with a market cap of 10 billion in this round?
We will wait and see.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
