Binance removes its name from its blockchain ecosystem, now called BNB Chain

Exchanges • February 15, 2022, 8:49AM EST
UPDATED: February 15, 2022, 11:02AM EST
REUTERS / Alamy Stock Photo

Crypto exchange Binance has renamed its blockchain ecosystem in a move that suggests the company does not want to be directly associated with the blockchain and its token.

Its blockchain ecosystem, previously known as Binance Smart Chain, has now been renamed to BNB Chain, and its token BNB — once known as Binance coin — has now been rechristened as "Build and Build."

“Over the years, we’ve realized that BNB has evolved into something beyond Binance and in fact, BNB means Build and Build (not Binance Coin), it’s something CZ has tweeted before," Samy Karim, BNB Chain ecosystem coordinator, told The Block. "The BNB ecosystem is bigger than Binance, and has transcended Binance in terms of its use cases."

The official announcement comes a week after Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao tweeted that BNB stands for "Build'N Build," i.e., build the community and let the community build.

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The removal of the Binance name will provide BNB Chain "with more opportunities and freedom to seek innovations," said the company. BNB Chain will also become multi-chain, it added.

"BNB Chain will embrace large-scale applications, including GameFi, SocialFi and the Metaverse. In particular, scaling from one chain to multi-chain, improving scaling solutions and expanding the validator set of BSC from 21 to 41 (with 20 validators functioning as candidate block producers)," said Karim.

Along with the name change, Binance has also come up with a new concept called MetaFi — a combination of two words — Meta (metadata) and Fi (DeFi). Through MetaFi, the BNB Chain community aims to build infrastructure for various projects, including GameFi, SocialFi, Web3, and NFTs, under one umbrella.

"MetaFi is a future all-encompassing ecosystem that promises to deliver a paradigm shift that will enable seamless interoperability between different projects and blockchains," said Binance. "The combination of these different blockchain projects enables a full-fledged parallel ecosystem serving users from around the globe."

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Yogita Khatri is a senior reporter at The Block, covering all things crypto. As one of the earliest team members, Yogita has played a pivotal role in breaking numerous stories, exclusives and scoops. With nearly 3,000 articles under her belt, Yogita holds the records as The Block's most-published and most-read author of all time. Prior to joining The Block, Yogita worked at crypto publication CoinDesk and The Economic Times, where she wrote on personal finance. To contact her, email: [email protected]. For her latest work, follow her on X @Yogita_Khatri5.

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