Bitcoin has taken the crypto world on a wild ride lately. After driving the latest bull run and reaching an ATH of nearly $65k, crypto’s big daddy has tumbled back down to under $40k, dragging down prices across the market as well.
Through all this tumult, though, it seems like exchanges, and their tokens, are faring well in the current crypto storm. There could be many reasons for why this is the case, but as crypto undoubtedly continues to grow, exchanges should naturally grow in kind, and looking towards tokens tied to exchanges might be a shrewd move this year.
Historically, exchanges that bring value to their users have seen strong movements in token price. BNB and UNI are leaders in this area. Each offers some value to users through holding their tokens, and it can be argued that the next exchange token to watch out for will have similar use cases applied to the exchange. In this regard Bitrue (BTR), a centralized exchange that offers DeFi-centric yield generation opportunities, should be a token to watch out for.
BNB and UNI Case Studies in Exchange Token Value
Looking at the crypto top ten, it’s easy to see that the list is dominated by assets representing networks. Ethereum (ETH) takes second place while Cardano (ADA) has recently jumped Binance (BNB) for the number four spot, which brings the list to its first exchange.
Binance is a centralized exchange that offers users a taste of decentralized finance, or DeFi, via Binance Smart Chain, or BSC, which is powered by the token BNB, much in the same way Ethereum’s network is powered by transactions paid for in ETH. The price of BNB skyrocketed earlier this year thanks in part to DeFi on BSC.
BNB not only became a store of value but a very useful coin for traders who paired it with other coins to earn CAKE as that coin began to explode as well. While BNB is not currently sitting at its ATH, and you’d be hard pressed to find a good token that is right now, it is still holding value and is in the green for gains over a seven-day period.
Moving down the list to just outside crypto’s top ten sits UNI, the native token for Uniswap, a decentralized exchange that recently launched Uniswap V3. Even though the market has seen quite some turbulence, the release of Uniswap V3 has seen strong support with $1.3B in trade volume per day making the new DEX the most used one as well.
UNI’s price also stands in the green despite recent market fluctuations. Upon its debut in 2018, Uniswap immediately became a sought after token. Minted originally as a governance token, the crypto community saw value, and it invested heavily, bringing up UNI’s market cap to above $13B and attracting calls from Vitalik Buterin recently to possibly use UNI as an oracle in DeFi’s future.
Bitrue Echoes Recent Successes in Crypto
Bitrue is a centralized exchange, meaning that user registration is required, but it is an exchange that has seen a lot of success with DeFi. DeFi users have been pairing BTR on BSC’s Pankcakeswap to yield rewards, and Bitrue offers its own opportunities to reap yields through staking via its Power Piggy and BTR Lockups.
To celebrate BTR’s listing on ProBit, Korea’s leading exchange Bitrue is juicing up their BTR Lockup to 15% if users can stake their coins for 30 days in a promotion that started on May 28. Besides this promotion, users can stake their BTR to receive APR as high as 22% for their investment in USDT, and a host of other tokens have similar offers that increase by staking BTR.
Using BTR can help yield users more tokens, and in the future the token will prove to be useful for governance, a la Uniswap. Further utility will be added to holding BTR as Bitrue’s lending rates will be made adjustable by using BTR in the near future, making BTR even more attractive for users seeking to leverage their crypto into higher gains.
While shadows have been cast on the current bull run, it looks like the utility that exchanges provide for the crypto community as a whole makes them a safer bet for future stores of value. While most big exchange tokens are riding at well above a dollar (BNB is in the clouds at multiple hundreds of dollars), BTR is a value token trading at around $0.15 at the time of writing, which means it’s possible to stock up on a token with a lot of utility yet in store.