Binance Smart Chain and Binance Chain become BNB Chain

Binance Smart Chain became quite popular as an Ethereum alternative during the latter’s peak of network congestions and gas fee issues.

Decentralized blockchain ecosystem Binance Smart Chain (BSC) announced on Tuesday that the Binance Chain and Binance Smart Chain are uniting under a new name, BNB Chain, in a bid to reflect their connection with the native token of the ecosystem Binance Coin (BNB).

According to a press release, BNB now stands for “Build and Build” instead of short for Binance Coin. Powered by BNB, the BNB Chain will introduce advanced capabilities and focus on building Web3 infrastructure.

Under the freshly-named BNB Chain umbrella, the chain governance part, the Binance Chain, where staking and voting happens, has become BNB Beacon Chain. On the other hand, the Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible, multichain-supporting Binance Smart Chain is simply named BNB Smart Chain, still shortened as BSC.

The BNB Chain will bring all its Web3 development under the umbrella of MetaFi that will bring together developers and projects from the metaverse along with GameFi and SocialFi. The BNB Chain would bring large-scale applications and developer tools while expanding the validator set from 21 to 41 with a focus on scalability.

Samy Karim, BNB Chain Ecosystem Coordinator told Cointelegraph:

“BNB Chain community will benefit from the previously launched $1 billion funds and receive financial and operational support, as well as an introduction to the industry’s leading experts, mentors, and investors. The ecosystem will bring a range of these programs from live mentorship events and workshops to hackathons and in-person meetings.”

Binance Smart Chain was launched in September 2020 as an alternative to Ethereum blockchain and mimicked the platform in its operation with a lower transaction cost and time of processing. In a short time span, BSC became a popular choice for DeFi developers and NFT projects due to ease of operations, interoperability and low cost. The rebranding comes as an attribute to the next leg of the journey that will combine DeFi and virtual reality in the metaverse.