Binance expands development of its Smart Chain for DeFi development

The crypto exchange invested $5 million worth of BNB into the project to attract DeFi developers

Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has recently launched the BUIDLReward Program. It is the company’s attempt to attract greater decentralised application (dApp) development to the Binance Smart Chain.

The crypto exchange invested over $5 million worth of BNB coins into the project and is a part of Binance’s bigger ventures — namely, a $100 million injection into a DeFi accelerator fund that is working to establish a connection between decentralised finance (DeFi) and centralised finance (CeFi) solutions.

“To further encourage the development of the dApp ecosystem on #BinanceSmartChain, we have committed $5 million USD worth of #BNB to the newly-launched Binance Smart Chain #BUIDL Reward Program,” Binance posted on their official Twitter account.

The rewards for the program will be given in BNB, and will be sent to the registered receiver’s addresses every month for the duration of the program. To incentivise further development on the Binance Smart Chain, the crypto exchange has set the reward percentage to 30% for the remainder of the year, or until its investment is all used up.

Changpeng Zhao, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Binance, recently posted a picture of the food-themed coin named PancakeSwap on the smart chain. The metrics, which measure activity based on unique senders, receivers, and the sum total, show that the coin is topping all three categories as of September 28 — despite Binance describing it as a “relatively new token”.

In a related project, Binance has also recently launched the Venus Protocol. The Venus Protocol is a lending platform for the company’s Smart Chain which was initially developed by Swipe Wallet, but later acquired by Binance.

The Venus Protocol is defined to be an “algorithmic-based money market system where transactions such as borrowing and granting can be carried out”.

“@VenusProtocol’s money market and stablecoin issuance platform can bring DeFi access and yield to CeFi users to a larger extent. We are glad to welcome Venus with its meaningful goals on #Binance Launchpool,” Binance tweeted.

Binance’s Smart Chain went live on September 1 of this year. Many have claimed that the company’s new version looks and feels similar to Ethereum.

The Smart Chain does offer a similar interface to tokens that are based on Ethereum as well as ERC-20 tokens. It is compatible with wallets such as Metamask and familiar 0x* addresses. In addition, it offers lower fees compared to that of Ethereum in the midst of the DeFi hype.