The Outbreak of Chinese Meme and On-Chain Traffic Competition

As October arrives, an unusual wave is spreading across BNB Chain. The first batch of Chinese-flavored Meme coins have emerged, quickly transforming from a small domestic enthusiast frenzy into a global competition. Overseas users are beginning to learn Chinese and research these novel coin names, marking a first in the crypto market.

How powerful is this wave? It has completely reshaped the market landscape—originally dominated by Solana’s Meme narrative, the focus has abruptly shifted to BNB Chain. Interaction frequency, discussion heat, and trading activity have all surged, even causing BNB’s price to dance with market sentiment, gradually making it the second most prominent mainstream asset after Bitcoin.

However, the good times didn’t last long. The industry volatility on October 11 shattered this euphoria, market sentiment tightened, and the Chinese Meme craze cooled down. Interestingly, it was not domestic teams that broke the silence, but a compliant platform. The platform’s leader had previously publicly criticized competitors’ token listing fees, yet unexpectedly used this Chinese Meme coin as a case study during a product demo. This stark contrast operation went viral, further fueling the trend, allowing BNB Chain’s Chinese Meme narrative to cross chain boundaries and break out of the circle.

After the incident settled, industry-leading exchanges quickly acted—investing $400 million to launch a subsidy plan to stabilize market expectations. The entire market began to recover gradually. On-chain activity reignited, mainstream assets rebounded, and structural resilience remained intact. By the end of Q3, the total crypto market cap surpassed $4.02 trillion.

But behind the surface of traffic competition, a deeper logic is quietly unfolding: as the concentration of top players in the exchange industry increases, where does the new growth come from? The answer is on-chain. Meme like “XX Life” is just a vivid microcosm of how various platforms compete for on-chain traffic.

The “One Super, Many Strong” Exchange Pattern: Why Is Market Share Hard to Shake?

In Q3 2025, Bitcoin’s price soared, and the crypto market danced along. The total market cap jumped from $3.46 trillion at the end of Q2 to $4.02 trillion, a 16.2% quarter-over-quarter increase, and a 72.5% year-over-year growth.

With such market vitality, how did the top exchanges perform? The top 10 exchanges contributed a total trading volume of $28.7 trillion in Q3, up 32.87% from $21.6 trillion in the previous quarter. Spot trading saw the biggest growth—$4.9 trillion, up 36.11% QoQ; derivatives trading also performed well, reaching $23.7 trillion, up 17.32%.

In this feast, the leading exchange dominated with $9.93 trillion in trading volume, accounting for 34.59% of the market. What does this mean? It is the only platform that can consistently maintain about one-third of the market share.

Other top platforms also performed well. One major derivatives exchange held 12.60%, two others took 11.58% and 11.45%, and another 11.36%. The competition appears fierce, but the market structure remains extremely stable—little fluctuation, with everyone cautiously vying within the existing market.

Whether spot or derivatives, the leading exchange maintains an absolute advantage, and its market share even increased from Q2 to Q3. In spot trading, it holds 41.26% of the market, a 3.27% QoQ increase; in derivatives, its share grew by 1% from Q2 to Q3.

What is the deeper meaning behind this pattern? It indicates that even as the market rapidly expands, it becomes increasingly difficult for platforms to carve out a significant share. Where is the new growth outlet? Market leaders have long seen this— the answer lies on-chain.

BNB Chain’s On-Chain Counterattack: From Margins to the Center

If last quarter’s flagship product for top exchanges on-chain was “fire starter,” then a token airdrop was the final straw. The entire BNB Chain ecosystem was ignited, with heat lasting from early this year until now.

How astonishing are the latest on-chain data? Among the most outstanding public chains in Q3 2025, BNB Chain ranks alongside two major competitors in the top three. Specifically, DEX trading volume on BNB Chain reached $225 billion, the highest since Q4 2021, trailing only Solana ($365 billion) and Ethereum ($337 billion).

But in another metric, the story reverses—active addresses. BNB Chain suddenly exploded in September, reaching a new record of 52.5 million, a 57% surge QoQ. Meanwhile, other mainstream chains’ data: Solana 45.8 million, Ethereum only 8.9 million. Moreover, transaction counts skyrocketed—from 892 million in Q2 to 1.22 billion in Q3.

What does rising activity mean? It signifies real revenue. Even before Q3 ended, BNB Chain generated $357 million in fee income. Just in September alone, it created $2.2 million in chain fee revenue, the highest since March.

On the ecosystem level, BNB Smart Chain has gathered 1,033 projects and protocols, more than 2.7 times that of a competing chain. On-chain TVL reached $8.729 billion, still far from Ethereum’s $87.415 billion, but only $2.6 billion short of catching up with another mainstream chain. The key is growth rate—BSC’s TVL monthly increase hit 15.02%, the fastest among the top 10 public chains.

Two “star products” are playing crucial roles behind this surge.

First is the spot DEX launched last year. Its launch opened the floodgates for ecosystem growth in Q2. By Q3, a perpetual contract DEX was added. Its performance in September was simply outrageous—single-day revenue hit $7.2 million, surpassing the long-celebrated derivatives platform (which had $2.79 million in the same period). Driven by this product, perpetual contract trading volume on BNB Chain soared 55% in Q3, reaching $36 billion.

Why did BNB Chain suddenly explode? Cost reduction played a key role. On September 24, validators proposed lowering the minimum Gas price from 0.1 Gwei to 0.05 Gwei, and shortening block time from 750 ms to 450 ms. This was the third major fee reduction in 18 months, with a long-term goal of lowering per-transaction costs to about $0.001.

Looking at past fee reductions, the effects are clear: in April 2024, from 3 Gwei down to 1 Gwei; in May 2025, from 1 Gwei down to 0.1 Gwei, a total cut of 75%. The May fee cut directly led to a 75% decrease in median transaction fees (from $0.04 to $0.01), with daily transaction counts jumping 140%, surpassing 12 million. It proves that fee cuts are strongly correlated with network activity.

BNB’s New Highs and Institutional Shift in Layout

BNB’s price trend reflects the market’s revaluation of this ecosystem. As trading volume leads, on-chain activity explodes, and the ecosystem continues to expand, BNB hit a new high of $1376 in Q3, with a market cap surpassing $150 billion, re-entering the top 3 of crypto assets.

This rise is not just driven by retail enthusiasm. More importantly, institutional investors are continuously deploying.

Since June and July this year, many traditional companies announced including BNB in their balance sheets. By Q3, this trend intensified. On August 25, a well-known Web3 company announced a $1 billion funding round and plans to go public in the US, with BNB explicitly included in its asset allocation, and investments in the BNB ecosystem. The investor involved is a firm dubbed the “strongest family office,” managing funds for a leading crypto founder and early executives.

By mid-October, a Hong Kong-listed investment bank announced raising $600 million to launch a BNB-focused fund in the US. Once completed, it will be the largest single investment in BNB by a listed company. Meanwhile, a major Japanese payment company acquired a 40% stake in a Japanese branch of a crypto exchange, further boosting market confidence in the BNB ecosystem.

More imaginative than these direct investments are the actions in the RWA (Real-World Asset) field.

On September 24, a global investment giant managing $1.6 trillion announced expanding its tokenization platform into the BNB Chain ecosystem. Their goal is clear: leverage BNB Chain’s scalable, low-cost, high-throughput infrastructure to strengthen their institutional tokenization capabilities.

What’s even more eye-catching is what happened on October 15— a wholly owned subsidiary of a commercial bank onboards an asset management fund exceeding $3.8 billion onto BNB Chain. Investors can subscribe using fiat or stablecoins, and redeem assets anytime via on-chain smart contracts.

What does this mean? The integration of traditional financial assets with on-chain technology is no longer just a concept on paper but a tangible reality.

From Meme to RWA: The True Growth Story

Compared to the short-term frenzy of Meme coins, these institutional participations represent a deeper transformation. When Franklin D. Dempsey and international financial institutions choose BNB Chain as their asset onboarding platform, this blockchain is upgrading from a “trading venue” to a “financial infrastructure.”

The large-scale adoption of RWA marks a watershed. For BNB Chain’s on-chain infrastructure, only when substantial assets continuously flow in can its value be fully validated. Compared to Meme coins’ rapid inflows and outflows, institutional financial assets are more sticky and can drive long-term on-chain ecosystem growth.

BNB’s ability to break out of the narrow definition of an exchange platform token and become a comprehensive asset integrating trading, payments, blockchain fuel, and investment tools hinges on its expanding application scenarios. For traders, BNB can offset fees; for investors, it’s a ticket to early projects; for developers, it’s the Gas for building on BNB Chain.

Today, for institutional investors, BNB has become a target for participating in the on-chain financial revolution. This is the core reason behind its rise beyond Meme hype and the foundation for setting new highs.

As more institutions deploy assets and build applications on BNB Chain, the chain’s throughput must keep upgrading, fees need continuous optimization, and trading experience must keep improving. As the native asset of this chain, the value BNB can create ultimately depends on how much real economic activity occurs on-chain.

In the era of RWA, BNB Chain is moving toward its true mission—to become the cornerstone of the financial system. This is the real route to the stars and the sea.