In recent periods, major exchanges have been active, with OKX's $OKB experiencing a strong surge, followed by Bitget adopting $BGB as the native token of the Morph blockchain.

Why are exchanges recently making moves on their platform tokens?

On one hand, the relaxation of U.S. regulatory authorities has led to a window of opportunity, prompting exchanges to empower their platform tokens and lay the groundwork for the future;

On the other hand, the trend of crypto and stock integration makes platform tokens of exchanges among the few truly valuable assets in the crypto space, backed by real business operations, and their value is being re-priced by the market.

Let's take a closer look at the top 5 players in this platform token battle to gain a comprehensive understanding of the overall situation.

1️⃣ $BNB from Binance

Binance has long been empowering $BNB, which has the broadest use cases among all exchanges.

From new token launches on the Launchpad/Launchpool, to Alpha staking in the wallet, to gas fees on the BSC chain, $BNB carries the value accumulation and liquidity of multiple business lines within the Binance ecosystem.

This is why $BNB has already surpassed a $10 billion market cap, and is among the top three cryptocurrencies by market capitalization in the entire blockchain industry.

Binance will continue to deeply enter the forefront of blockchain and asset issuance, with $BNB serving as an extremely important vanguard and value connection tool.

2️⃣ $OKB from OKX

OKX's exchange and wallet businesses should be viewed separately.

OKX's exchange business is its foundation, but it has long been overshadowed by Binance, failing to break through and facing many issues in listing projects, which has drawn criticism from the community.

However, OKX has taken a different path, early on building up its on-chain business, with its Web3 wallet being far ahead, having captured the traffic entry point of the Web3 world.

Unfortunately, OKX's public chain ecosystem has been lacking, far behind the BSC ecosystem.

This has led to shortcomings in the empowerment of $OKB, lacking the wealth effect seen in $BNB.

OKX has recognized this issue and has recently strongly boosted $OKB, activating the X Layer blockchain ecosystem through the token price.

Therefore, we can see that many projects have emerged on the X Layer blockchain ecosystem due to the current hype.

Long-term, $OKB is very important for OKX's strategic positioning and will not be easily abandoned; there are definitely opportunities ahead.

3️⃣ $BGB from Bitget

Bitget has been integrating its own ecosystem, first merging $BWB from Bitget Wallet into $BGB, and now using $BGB as the native token of the Morph blockchain.

Bitget is somewhat similar to OKX: its wallet business is also very strong, having achieved a leapfrog in wallet business through the acquisition of Bitkeep; however, its blockchain business has weaknesses.

Previously, Bitget supported its own ecosystem's blockchain, Morph, but it had ongoing issues. Now, it has directly entered the scene, connecting its exchange, wallet, and blockchain businesses through $BGB.

Overall, Bitget is also a very strong exchange. $BGB has already experienced a significant surge, and it continues to release positive news, making it a strong competitor in this platform token battle.

4️⃣ $MNT from Bybit

Bybit does not have an official platform token; $MNT is the native token of the blockchain it supports, Mantle.

However, Bybit has a deep relationship with Mantle:

In 2021, Bybit, capitalizing on the DAO trend, established its own DAO called BitDAO. The purpose of BitDAO was to build a crypto treasury, with Bybit injecting hundreds of millions of dollars.

The native token of BitDAO is BIT, which Bybit holds in large quantities.

Why establish a DAO?

It was essentially to address compliance issues, attracting community participation through the DAO structure to avoid potential legal problems associated with centralized platform tokens.

But solving the compliance issue has caused many problems: Bybit cannot directly integrate its business using the BIT token, nor can it directly empower it, losing an important competitive edge against other exchanges.

Therefore, in 2023, BitDAO transformed into Mantle Network and converted BIT tokens into MNT tokens at a 1:1 ratio.

Today, the Mantle chain is more quiet, and the price of the MNT token is also poor.

In short, among the leading exchanges, Bybit's platform token is the weakest, but it may have future actions, making it a potential value gap.

5️⃣ $GT from Gate

First, is Gate considered one of the top five exchanges?

This is still debatable, as it is well known that the so-called top five exchanges actually include ten.

Nevertheless, Gate has been very strong in this cycle, with a lot of community buzz and actual contract trading volume ranking among the top five.

Compared to OKX and Bitget, Gate's on-chain business is not as impressive, but its strength is still notable: it has its own blockchain, GateChain, and its Gate Wallet business is continuously developing.

Summary

Looking at the use cases of platform tokens, the direction of leading exchanges is the same: integrating multiple business lines, empowering platform tokens, and achieving artificial deflation through burn mechanisms to increase token prices and further activate their own blockchain ecosystems.

Except for Binance, the blockchain ecosystems of other major exchanges are not very strong, but they are all making efforts:

The strongest is OKX, currently empowering X Layer;

Followed by Bitget, changing strategies and integrating Morph;

Then Bybit, although it has Mantle, it remains lukewarm;

Finally, Gate, whose blockchain and wallet businesses have not shown outstanding performance.

Looking at the market capitalization of platform tokens, $BNB from Binance is the only one exceeding $10 billion, while other exchanges' platform tokens are around $5 billion, leaving plenty of room for growth.

Who will become the next platform token with a $10 billion market cap in this round?

Let's wait and see.

Original title: "The Battle of Platform Tokens Among Top Five Exchanges: Who Will Be the Dark Horse This Time?"

Original author: Yue Xiaoyu@yuexiaoyu111