The Binance Coin price held steady above $700, as a unique chart pattern pointed to more gains, potentially to $1,155 in the near term.
Binance Coin (BNB) was trading at $707 on Jan. 1, a few points below the December high of $794 and 200% above its 2024 low.
The BNB coin faces three key catalysts that could push it much higher in the first quarter of this year.
First, the network has continued to burn its tokens, a move that is expected to reduce its outstanding coins to 100 million from 144 million over time. According to BNB Burn, the network is expected to conclude a 1.63 million token burn worth $1.01 billion soon. It will then burn another 1.5 million BNB coins worth $1.089 billion in the first quarter.
On top of these quarterly autoburns, the network burns more tokens each day from the gas fees generated. This approach has incinerated 246,950 coins with over $175 million since its inception a few years ago.
These burns will create more value for BNB price over time by making its tokens rarer and increasing the sums staking investors get. Binance Coin’s staking yield has dropped from 12% in November to 2.3% as the staking ratio rose slightly to 20.32%.
Second, the Binance Smart Chain ecosystem is doing relatively well even as competition in the industry rose. It has over 905,640 active addresses, a total value locked of over $5.5 billion and stablecoins worth $6.86 billion.
BNB Chain’s DEX protocols have continued doing well. The volume handled by its protocols rose by 10% in the last seven days to over $13.42 billion. That has brought the total volume since inception to $1.16 trillion, making it the second-biggest player after Ethereum (ETH), which has handled over $3.4 trillion.
BNB price strong technicals
Third, Binance Coin has some strong technicals that may push it much higher in the longer term. The weekly chart shows that the BNB price has been slowly forming a cup and handle chart pattern, a popular sign of continuation.
The cup section formed between 2021 and June 2024, while the handle area formed between June and November. We find the depth of the cup is about 74%. By measuring the same distance from the cup’s upper side, the BNB price target is $1,155, which is about 63% above the current level.
