According to data from Nansen, the BNB Chain, linked to Binance, surpassed Solana in daily fees to become the leader among all blockchains. On February 13, BNB Chain generated over $5.8 million in daily fees, exceeding Solana’s $3.3 million and totaling more than five times that of Ethereum. This was the first instance since Halloween 2024—when Bitcoin had a notable day—that a blockchain other than Ethereum or Solana led the industry in daily fees.
PancakeSwap leads decentralized exchange volume
A significant portion of BNB Chain’s activity stemmed from PancakeSwap, a decentralized exchange (DEX) that operates across multiple chains but generates the majority of its trading volume on BNB Chain. On February 13, PancakeSwap outperformed all DEXs across all chains in trading volume.
On the eve of Valentine’s Day, Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao revealed that his dog’s name is Broccoli, which led to a surge of memecoins named after his Belgian Malinois. Zhao clarified that he did not intend to launch any memecoins of his own.
The increase in activity on BNB Chain was not limited to memecoins inspired by Zhao’s pet. In fact, it has been rising recently, even surpassing Tron and Ethereum in daily active addresses to secure second place in that category, as indicated by Nansen data. Nevertheless, its nearly 6 million active addresses over the past seven days remain significantly behind Solana’s industry-leading 35.8 million.
BNB Chain’s memecoin surge boosts activity
On February 9, BNB Chain ranked second in fee revenue, just behind Solana. A significant factor contributing to this was the meteoric rise and fall of the BNB-based “Test” (TST) token.
Originally intended as a tutorial token for BNB Chain’s memecoin launchpad, Four.Meme, TST quickly attracted speculation once traders noticed the token’s name, propelling its market cap to $500 million before it ultimately crashed.
Memecoins are often deemed worthless due to having no intrinsic value. Ironically, they have emerged as one of the most popular use cases in crypto over the past year. Even world leaders have engaged with the trend, including US President Donald Trump, who has endorsed a couple of meme tokens.
Solana has been the leading chain for memecoins, with speculative trading significantly contributing to Solana’s rise in key blockchain metrics such as fees. BNB Chain has pledged support for the meme ecosystem in its 2025 roadmap.
The native token of BNB Chain (BNB) has risen 15% over the past week. This token, which is utilized for transaction fees on the blockchain and within Binance’s exchange ecosystem, recently surpassed Solana’s SOL to become the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.