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Binance is currently the largest exchange in the world, counting a trading volume of around $55B. An exchange is a platform that helps to bridge between fiat and cryptocurrencies; it also offers a plethora of financial instruments such as spot & margin trading, leverage trading, staking, launchpad, lending & borrowing and much more. Binance Coin (BNB) currently holds #3 on Coinmarketcap’s ranking with a circulating supply of 166M and $104,748B market cap.
Who’s behind Binance?
The man behind Binance and BNB coin is the Chinese businessman Changpeng Zhao, simply known within the crypto community as CZ. The Chinese CEO, member of the Blockchain.info team and OKCoin’s CTO since 2005, has developed, following a work experience at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, what is known in brokerage as one of the fastest HFT’s system: high-frequency trading is a type of algorithmic financial trading, which is being used to buy and sell assets in a short timeframe. He founded Binance and launched his first ICO in 2017, thus giving birth to the popular exchange which led him, as early as 2018, into the world’s richest people ranking, according to Forbes.
How does Binance work?
Initially running on the Ethereum network, Binance launched its own blockchain in 2019, the Binance Chain, which uses a PoS consensus algorithm. Not long afterwards, the Chinese giant has developed a second parallel blockchain, called Binance Smart Chain (BSC); BSC enables smart contracts execution and is based on an hybrid consensus system of PoA and DPoS, the Proof-of- Staked-Authority.
Shortly, Binance Smart Chain was able to build a five-star ecosystem, thanks also to its popularity, bringing to the market an alternative solution to Ethereum’s most talked-about issue: the so-called "gas fees” (transaction fees).
Why did Binance become so popular?
There is a crucial factor behind the curtains of Binance’s growth: BNB token. The exchange’s strength backed by the burn mechanism described in Binance whitepaper has indeed attracted many investors, which has led to a huge increase in active addresses: in just a year they have gone up from 16,000 to currently 1.2 million. In order to keep track of BNB token emission, the exchange has adopted a strategy pretty much similar to bank’s (although the technology on which the exchange is based is decentralized). This method, known as "The Burn", requires the company to re-purchase 20% of their own profits each quarter and then take care of sending those funds into wallets whose keys are unknown: this makes the Binance token hyper-deflationary. Today BNB is used for gas fees on both chains (BC and BSC), and about 25% has already been burned: the ultimate goal is to reach 50% of the supply.
Currently, BSC is one of the most used blockchains, due to its cheap fees (lower than Ethereum) and its compatibility with the EVM, which makes Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum services interoperable. The nodes, called Oracles (supervised by Relayers, similar to Bitcoin’s full-nodes and miners), can unfold the processes on Ethereum by interpreting the instructions and subsequently taking actions through Binance’s programming language, thus building a sort of "bridge" between the protocols.
Why you should learn blockchain?
DeFi, Agrifood, IoT, Sharing Economy, Insurance, Art, Gaming, Law. Blockchain’s use cases are endless, and understanding the way to make this technology even more efficient is just the beginning. One of the most relevant field of application is the industrial sector, where countless jobs of the future could theoretically be replaced by smart contracts, oracles and AI.
Blockchain’s skills are increasingly in demand. It is not too late to start your career now: blockchain is just becoming everyday life. However, the learning curve is still steep: many companies still cannot fully understand the difference between an usual database and a blockchain, so when they turn to business advisors, their use cases are often not suitable for the technology they want to use.
Here’s what it takes:
By checking different job vacancies, this is a list of the most relevant skills and requirements:
- Understanding of algorithms, data security, decentralized technologies and data structures.
- A solid background in coding skills, with at least one of the following programming languages: Python, JavaScript, JAVA, C, C++.
- General understanding of ledgers, blockchains and cryptocurrencies.
- Expertise in performance management and anomaly detection.
- At least basic experience in building blockchain frameworks and business applications.
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