Binance’s BNB becomes the third largest crypto by market cap

BNB, the exchange token of Binance, has become the third largest crypto by market capitalization for the first time as its price rally continues.

Data from CoinGecko and Binance-owned CoinMarketCap both show that BNB's market capitalization has surpassed that of Tether around 4:00 UTC on Friday. As of writing, BNB's market cap stands at $34.4 billion.

BNB has mostly remained as one of the top 10 coins by market cap in the past. CoinMarketCap's most recent snapshot on January 31 showed that BNB was ranked at the 10th spot back then when its price was changing hands at around $40.

But BNB's price has rallied towards above $230 as of writing, which has almost six-folded within weeks. 

As The Block Research mapped out in a piece on Thursday, one feature that Binance created for BNB since September is using it as the native token for its Binance Smart Chain that seeks to take advantage of the boom of decentralized finance.

"While Binance Smart Chain has made tradeoffs in that it is far more centralized than networks like Ethereum, it has used the demand for DeFi activity and the high fees environment to its advantage," wrote The Block analyst John Dantoni, who identified 103 projects and companies across 13 different verticals expanding on the BSC ecosystem.

Screenshot of market cap ranking on CoinGecko