Crypto exchange Binance has burned $36.7 million worth of BNB, CEO Changpeng Zhao today announced in a letter that detailed the progress the company has made in the third quarter of 2019.
The quarterly burn saw over two million BNB removed from circulation, leaving 185,474,825 BNB still circulating in the market. Binance will continue to burn its supply of BNB until there are 100 million BNB left, or 50 percent of the total BNB ever issued. Zhao said this number represents “significant growth”—the amount of BNB burned is based on the number of trades performed on the exchange per quarter, so burning a high amount represents growth.
Last quarter, just over 800,000 BNB was burned, meaning 154 percent more BNB was burned this time around. Zhao puts the growth down to the addition of services like margin trading and futures trading, low fees, and more ways to load up Binance accounts with fiat.
Per the popular coin ranking site CoinMarketCap, BNB is now the seventh most popular coin by market cap, ahead of EOS and behind Litecoin. BNB has a market cap of $2.8 billion, is worth $18.57, and traded $241 million in that last 24 hours.
Despite more transactions taking place, Q3 saw a major price slump this quarter. BNB is down from its all time high back in June, when it was worth $39.57. “There are many possible reasons for it, although none of them make much sense to me. Yes, there was a drop in the price of bitcoin, our industry’s index. There was some FUD on various things (per usual),” said Zhao. “Markets often confuse people, even me sometimes.”
BNB was previously called Binance Coin, but Zhao announced its official renaming to fellow Binancians in his letter.