With the rise of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus, staking — the act of holding crypto in a special address to secure a blockchain network rather than via mining — is in vogue in the cryptoeconomy. And wherever something goes vogue in crypto, Malta-based exchange giant Binance generally goes too.
At the same time, Binance likes to do things its own way and to that extent is often a trendsetter in the industry.
Relatedly, the exchange likely started its latest trend on December 3rd in announcing it was rolling out support for a zero-fee Tezos (XTZ) staking service on its flagship trading platform. In doing so, Binance may have just landed the first salvo in a “fight to the bottom” where the fees of Staking-as-a-service offerings are concerned.
Binance Undercuts the Competition
In light of Binance’s rapid ascension in the cryptocurrency ecosystem over the past two years, there are very few crypto exchanges in the world that can rise to the challenge of matching or besting the appeal of Binance’s various, ever-expanding services.
One of those exchanges that is in the same league is San Francisco-based platform Coinbase, even though comparatively Binance still has more muscle in a few regards.
With that said, last month Coinbase made waves in the space when it unveiled support for Tezos staking rewards for users who held XTZ on the exchange. At that point in time, it seemed all but inevitable that other major exchanges — namely Binance — would launch similar services in short order.
Weeks later, Binance has indeed followed up with its own XTZ staking service, though the service has one major difference from Coinbase’s and other smaller Tezos staking operations: no fees. In pointed contrast, Coinbase currently charges its users a fee of 25 percent for all XTZ staking rewards made through its platform.
Naturally, staking for free is a lot more financially attractive to any portfolio than staking for a 25 percent cut, a reality that surely has not been lost on Binance as it continues to press to dominate the crypto trading arena wherever it can.
The ball is now in the court of companies like Coinbase to either 1) lower its staking fees to make its own offering more competitive, or 2) keep its fees put and hope that its main user base will find it easier and more comfortable to interact with Coinbase — a Western-based country — than with Binance proper.
As for smaller companies in the fledgling Staking-as-a-service sector, they may find it hard to keep up with Binance’s feeless XTZ staking service period. All eyes will remain on Binance to see if it follows suit with no fee staking offerings for other projects, e.g. the coming Ethereum 2.0 network.
Binance Just Made Its Latest Acquisition
On December 3rd, news also broke that Binance had acquired Beijing-based blockchain data firm DappReview.
It’s all with a mind toward bringing dApps further into the mainstream, Binance chief financial officer Wei Zhou explained of the buy-up:
“On-chain applications are still the missing piece for mass blockchain adoption. The DappReview team has shown its commitment to dapps and strong execution in building a leading global dapps platform within a year of establishment. Binance and DappReview share a mutual goal of driving blockchain applications.”
Accordingly, Binance’s in-house dApp game will be that much stronger going forward. DappReview tracks activity from nearly 4,000 dApps across more than a dozen blockchains and reportedly boasts 300,000 monthly users derived from over 100 countries around the globe.
“Our next step is to partner with more blockchain protocols and developers on dapp data integration, and push for dapps adoption on a greater scale,” said Vincent Niu, chief executive officer and founder of DappReview.