Binance-native blockchain BNB Chain continues to show stable activity growth in the fourth quarter of 2022 despite the broader crypto bear market according to new research.
In the report “State of BNB Chain Q4 2022” published on February 5, Messari researcher James Trautman said that the Binance network continues with “an aggressive strategy to distribute financial and human capital in the ecosystem.”
Due to this continuous update and development, the address and active transactions per day on average “raised downward and upward trends by 30% and 0.2%, respectively,” the researchers said.
A bear market is usually a quiet period in terms of on-chain activity, but the team uses this time to continue building and developing their product.
“2022 is an exciting year for the crypto industry […] Despite market volatility, BNB Chain lives up to its Build N’ Build name with network upgrades and ecosystem expansion showing considerable strength through Q4,” explained Trautman.
BscScan reports that daily transactions on the BNB Chain have remained stable at around 3 million since mid-August. However, daily BEP-20 token transfers have seen an increase in activity this year with a 66% increase to over 5 million on February 5.
BNB Smart Chain’s unique addresses are currently at a high of 250 million, according to BscScan. Average new unique addresses per day increased by 41.3% year over year.
Messari attributed the growth to the adoption of several ecosystem protocols such as the Web3 Hooked onboarding protocol, the increase in DeFi activity in the Venus Protocol, and the increase in NFT activity in the OpenSea market.
Meanwhile, BNB Chain DeFi total locked value has increased by 25% since the beginning of the year to $6.62 billion, according to DeFiLlama.
“BNB Chain is implementing a growth strategy that makes important steps towards adoption. It has made several upgrades to its core functions, integrated with strategic partners, and extended it to DeFi, NFT, GameFi, and others,” said Trautman.
related: Binance delves into decentralized Web3 storage with BNB Greenfield
However, despite the increase in user activity, financial performance declined. Average transaction fees are down, leading to less revenue, he said.
Network revenue declined 10% for the quarter but Messari stated that the fundamentals were still positive, concluding that:
“Ultimately, this is a positive sign that the catalyst for user growth is coming from the underlying user base and better value for the BNB Chain network, especially after the FTX drama unfolded during Q4.”
Looking ahead, Trautman said he expects BNB Chain to continue to grow, including increasing scaling solutions and boosting throughput.
Binance’s native token, BNB, has fallen 1.2% over the past 24 hours in the fall to $326, according to Cointelegraph. The token has made 25% over the past month but remains down 52.5% from its May 2021 high of $686.