从赦免到强者：解析BNB后监管时代的投资逻辑

Many mainstream financial institutions have compliance departments that are extremely sensitive to the criminal records of their partners, which is why Binance has been unable to open bank accounts and adopt the traditional brokerage model of bank-to-securities transfers for converting between crypto and fiat currencies.

The pardon has largely removed this stain, paving the way for Binance to establish direct partnerships with banks and other institutions in the future. Zhao himself responded positively, writing on social media: "Will do everything we can to help make America the Capital of Crypto and advance web3 worldwide."

To understand why this event has caused such a stir in the industry, it's necessary to look back at the biggest "black swan" event in the crypto world in recent years—the collapse of FTX. Before 2022, the customer asset reserves of centralized cryptocurrency exchanges were largely a "black box," and users had no choice but to trust the platforms. This situation was completely upended in November 2022.

At that time, FTX, once the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange and backed by top-tier institutional investors like Temasek and Sequoia Capital, collapsed spectacularly after it was revealed to have misappropriated billions of dollars in user assets.

The impact of this event was catastrophic: Bitcoin's price plummeted to a two-year low, countless users lost their assets entirely, and traditional financial institutions that had just begun to show interest in cryptocurrencies were instantly scared away, sending industry confidence to rock bottom.

The FTX incident became a watershed moment, ending the "black box" era of exchanges' unchecked growth. In its wake, to rebuild trust, the entire industry launched a transparency movement known as "Proof of Reserves," where major exchanges began disclosing wallet addresses and using cryptographic methods like Merkle trees to prove to the public that they were not misusing user assets.

It is against this backdrop of extreme sensitivity to asset security that the differences in the nature of the Binance and FTX cases become apparent. According to public documents from the U.S. Department of Justice, the core allegation against Binance was its failure to implement an effective Anti-Money Laundering (AML) program, with no charges related to fraud or misappropriation of customer funds emerging from the investigation.

In contrast, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for stealing over $8 billion in customer funds. Based on public wallet addresses and proof of reserves, available information indicates that Binance's current token reserves are not less than 100% of total user assets.

Many traditional investors are hesitant about cryptocurrencies due to a common misconception: that they are completely anonymous and exist in a lawless space where effective Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulation is impossible. However, the reality is quite the opposite.

In fact, due to the transparency of cryptocurrencies, some crypto investors have developed trading strategies by observing the real-time holding changes of these well-known addresses and have achieved good results.

However, if this clear transaction chain is broken, AML becomes impossible. This is precisely the purpose of certain specific tools:

– Privacy Coins (e.g., Monero): These tokens use cryptographic techniques to deliberately hide the sender, receiver, and amount of a transaction, thereby breaking the traceable chain.

– Mixers (e.g., Tornado Cash): These services act like a digital "jar" where many users deposit their tokens to be mixed together, and then each withdraws an equivalent amount of different tokens, thus disrupting the flow of funds.

Regulatory bodies are highly vigilant about these tools that obstruct traceability. For example, Tornado Cash has long been on the U.S. government's sanctions list, and privacy coins like Monero have been delisted by most major exchanges due to their untraceable nature. Therefore, for the average investor, the mainstream crypto assets they encounter are all within an increasingly mature and transparent regulatory framework.

The most direct consequence of Binance's historical shortcomings in anti-money laundering has been its difficulty in integrating with the traditional banking system. Banks are responsible for AML and are therefore unable to open bank accounts for Binance, which means users cannot directly link their bank cards for deposits and withdrawals as they can on platforms like Moomoo.

To solve the problem of fiat deposits, Binance adopted a peer-to-peer (P2P) trading model. Simply put, users do not deposit money directly onto the platform but instead trade with another individual user on the platform. This process is more like a "mediated transaction" in a second-hand market rather than the "bank-to-brokerage transfer" of traditional stock trading.

For users accustomed to stock trading, this model, which requires finding a counterparty and transferring money to a stranger, is not only cumbersome but also introduces additional counterparty risks and potential issues of fraud and money laundering. In contrast, the direct deposit and withdrawal channels provided by regulated brokerages are clearly more in line with the operating habits and security expectations of traditional financial users.

However, despite its deposit model being a barrier for traditional investors, from a fundamentals perspective, Binance has still leveraged its first-mover advantage to establish a powerful market position among "crypto-native" user groups. This dominance is most directly reflected in its astonishing trading volume, which is the core engine supporting the value of BNB.

Binance is the undisputed giant of cryptocurrency exchanges, with a market share far exceeding its competitors. In the spot trading sector, Binance's market share once surpassed 60% and has remained stable at over 57% even after market fluctuations. In the much larger derivatives market, its dominance is even more solid, with its market share reaching a record high of 64%.

Behind these percentages are enormous transaction volumes. Binance's monthly spot trading volume often exceeds $550 billion, while its derivatives trading volume is in the trillions of dollars. As the platform with the deepest liquidity and the most abundant trading pairs in the world (over 1,500), Binance serves more than 280 million users.

Even with an average transaction fee of just 0.1%, it can generate billions of dollars in revenue annually. This huge income, driven by massive trading volume, is the fundamental driving force for the development of the entire BNB ecosystem.

A core feature of the BNB token's economic model is its Auto-Burn mechanism. This mechanism is designed to systematically reduce BNB's initial circulating supply of 200 million tokens down to 100 million through regular burns. For stock investors, this can be compared to a listed company's stock buyback program. Just as a company buying back and canceling its own shares reduces the number of shares in circulation, potentially increasing the value per share for the remaining stock, Binance's quarterly burns permanently remove BNB from circulation, increasing its scarcity. For example, in a recent quarter, BNB worth over $1 billion was permanently destroyed.

For BNB holders, one of the most attractive utilities is participating in Binance Launchpool. This can be understood as a way to "stake" or lock up BNB to earn new tokens from emerging projects for free. This mechanism is similar to stock investors receiving special dividends or getting early shares in Pre-IPO projects at zero cost.

BNB holders do not need to invest additional funds; they simply lock up their existing BNB to share in the potential growth dividends of new projects. Many past Launchpool projects have achieved significant returns after being listed for trading, which fully demonstrates the potential value of this mechanism.

Overall, as the platform token of the Binance exchange, BNB's origins are close to a user points system, meaning early users could get tokens by signing up, trading, or completing various other tasks, becoming early co-builders of BNB.

This group of early loyal users ultimately became Binance's greatest asset in the cryptocurrency market. Therefore, Binance not only uses its revenue to buy back BNB but also frequently distributes 3%-5% of the "listing fees" it collects as dividends to BNB holders, which has become the biggest value support for BNB.

This combination of strong income/fundamentals and high speculative upside also appeals to some cryptocurrency traders. After all, projects in the cryptocurrency space with real income and profitability are extremely rare.

A classic example is that although the AI industry was ignited by OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google, with its deep technological accumulation and resources, quickly launched the Gemini model and successfully captured a considerable market share.

Binance's strategy is identical: it uses its dominant position and huge revenue from its centralized exchange business to quickly identify and dominate emerging crypto trends through its investment and incubation arm, Binance Labs.

– Case Study 1: Layout in the DeFi Sector (Aster Protocol): When decentralized perpetual contract exchanges like Hyperliquid began to emerge, Binance did not stand idly by. Through Binance Labs, it incubated and invested in a direct competitor, Aster Protocol, which aims to capture market share with a more user-friendly interface. This is a classic "fast-follow and surpass" strategy in the style of Google.

– Case Study 2: The Wave of Meme Coins (BNB Chain): After witnessing the explosive growth of meme coins on the Solana chain, Binance and the BNB Chain acted swiftly to actively support their own meme coin ecosystem. This included social media promotion by key figures, support from the Launchpad platform, and liquidity incentive programs, successfully attracting a large amount of speculative heat and trading volume to the BNB Chain.

This adaptability indicates that investing in BNB is not just a bet on a specific technology, but a bet on the ability of the Binance ecosystem to maintain its core position in the crypto economy. Whatever the next trend may be—DeFi, NFTs, or AI—Binance will use its vast resources to secure a place.

In October 2025, Binance's Yzi Labs announced a $1 billion fund to promote the BNB ecosystem. Currently, Binance has a presence in multiple sectors; for example, Coinmarketcap.com is one of the largest crypto information platforms, and Pancakeswap is a leading DeFi project with a circulating market cap of about $1 billion.

In summary, a comprehensive investment thesis for BNB has emerged. Its past legal troubles were mainly related to regulatory compliance, and with the presidential pardon, this chapter is largely closed.

The value of BNB is supported by a powerful economic engine consisting of huge transaction fee income, a deflationary token burn mechanism, and highly attractive Launchpool incentives. More importantly, its ecosystem demonstrates excellent adaptability and market dominance.