BNB

It began as a fee coupon: the token was issued in 2017 to pay trading fees on the Binance exchange, and for a while it lived as an ordinary contract on Ethereum. A dedicated chain was launched later, and the coin moved there.

Today BNB is both the settlement unit of BNB Chain, where fees are denominated in it, and the stake put up by validators that secure consensus under proof of stake. The chain is EVM-compatible, so contracts and wallets port over with little modification, and its low fees turned it into a venue for high-volume retail applications, from decentralised exchanges to games. Inside the exchange's own ecosystem, holding the coin unlocks access to new project launches and reward programmes.

Supply shrinks over time: the issuer periodically destroys a portion of the coins under pre-announced rules, walking circulation down toward a target, and what is destroyed cannot be restored.

The coin's fortunes are tied to the exchange's: demand rests on the discounts, launches and services of a single company rather than on an independent user base.