PancakeSwap Version 3 Is Coming to BNB Smart Chain

Decentralized cryptocurrency exchange PancakeSwap announced Saturday that a new version of its application is rolling out to users next month on BNB Smart Chain.

“The new features we're introducing will offer our users an even better experience and help make DeFi accessible to more people than ever before," said Mochi, the pseudonymous head chef of PancakeSwap.

The launch of PancakeSwap V3 is slated for the first week of April and will be accompanied by a suite of upgrades to the service, such as more competitive trading fees and improved liquidity provisioning, according to a company press release.

PancakeSwap detailed a rewards campaign that coincides with the launch of its updated exchange that will give users an airdrop of the exchange’s CAKE token if they contribute a certain amount of funds to the platform’s liquidity pools.

Users providing liquidity within the campaign’s requirements will also receive an NFT that serves as a symbol of loyalty towards PancakeSwap. However, a disclaimer states that the token is non-transferable—meaning it can’t be sold—and that the campaign can be modified or canceled at any time.

PancakeSwap’s CAKE token is currently ranked 71st in terms of market capitalization compared to other tokens, with a collective value of around $700 million, according to CoinGecko data. Over the past 30 days, it’s fallen roughly 9% to $3.79, a 91% decline from its previous all-time high of around $44 in April 2021.

PancakeSwap V2 is currently the fourth most popular choice among decentralized exchanges, with around $84 million in trading volume over the past day, according to data from CoinGecko. Its most popular trading pair among tokens was between Tether’s USDT stablecoin and BUSD, the Binance-branded token over which its issuer Paxos faces regulatory pressure.

PancakeSwap V2 also recently deployed on Aptos—where it has $30.3 total value locked (TVL), according to DefiLlama—and Ethereum.

PancakeSwap was originally launched in September 2020 by anonymous developers. While other, larger decentralized exchanges like UniSwap are built on Ethereum, PancakeSwap is built on BNB Chain, a standalone blockchain created by Binance that supports smart contracts.

In June of last year, Binance said it had made a “strategic investment” in PancakeSwap of an undisclosed amount, signaling it would support the project for the foreseeable future. 

Decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges differ from their centralized counterparts, like Coinbase or Binance, by enabling people to trade cryptocurrencies directly with each other while maintaining the possession of their tokens the entire time.

A core element of how many decentralized exchanges operate is inviting users to help provide liquidity using an automated market maker (AMM) system, allowing users to lock their tokens up and earn rewards.

The TVL on PancakeSwap has been in decline since digital asset prices peaked towards the end of 2021, falling to around $2.5 billion today from $6.5 billion in December of 2021, according to DefiLlama.