Did BNB Chain manage to shrug off the regulatory uncertainty in Q1 2023

• BNB Chain’s revenue collected in BNB terms decreased by 11.7% QoQ.
• Network utilization increased as the average daily active addresses rose 4.2% QoQ.

Binance’s ecosystem faced numerous difficulties in the first quarter of 2023. Whether it was the lawsuit by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) or the increasing number of hacks on its BNB Chain, concerns around the future of one of the largest entities in the crypto space are rife.

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Amidst this lingering uncertainty, blockchain analytics firm Messari issued a report on BNB Chain’s network performance in Q1 and there were some noteworthy developments.

.@JamesTrautman_‘s State of @BNBCHAIN Q1 23′ report ⬇️

+Market cap rebounded, increasing 24.9% QoQ
+TVL denominated in $USD increased by 10.2%
+Average number of validators and total stake increased 10.7% & 12.1%, respectively

FREE report link in the next tweet👇 pic.twitter.com/rsgnQEqf86

— Messari (@MessariCrypto) April 19, 2023

State of BNB Chain in Q1 2023

One of the biggest takeaways was the 11.7% decline in revenue collected in Binance Coin [BNB], on a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) basis.

In USD terms, the revenue was down 5.8%. The report highlighted that this was due to the decrease in average transaction fees on the chain.

On the contrary, the circulating market cap rose by more than 24% QoQ. The discrepancy between network value and revenue showed that value was driven more by general market sentiment than network utility.

Source: Messari

The improvement in BNB Chain’s financials could be tied to the upsurge in network usage. Though the activity levels stabilized to some extent in Q1 2023, BNB Chain’s average daily active addresses rose by 4.2% QoQ. The transaction activity followed a similar pattern as it finished the quarter with nearly 4% QoQ growth.

This meant that despite the ongoing FUD, BNB Chain’s user activity remained robust.

Source: Messari

How did BNB’s DeFi ecosystem perform?

With the onset of the bullish rally, Q1 2023 saw a promising recovery of BNB Chain’s decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. The USD-denominated total value locked (TVL) grew by 10.2%.

Moreover, the biggest protocol on the chain, PancakeSwap[CAKE], was up 3% QoQ in terms of TVL.

DeFi on BNB Chain expanded beyond PancakeSwap with the launch of Uniswap [UNI] V3 in March. At the end of Q1, PancakeSwap’s TVL for BNB Chain was 43%, down from 46% the previous quarter.

How much are 1,10,100 BNBs worth today?

Performance in the derivatives market

At the time of writing, the BNB token was valued at $325.66, falling by 4.56% in the last 24 hours, per CoinMarketCap. A look at BNB’s derivatives revealed that funding rates across most of the top exchanges were positive at press time, reflective of the dominance of bullish long traders.

Furthermore, Coinglass’s data showed that demand for BNB futures contracts dropped as Open Interest (OI) fell 3.84% in the last 24 hours.

Source: Coinglass