Decrypting the platform coin track: How can WXT replicate the hundredfold miracles of BNB and BGB?

Author: Sissie, ChainCatcher

In the ever-changing cryptocurrency market characterized by sector rotation, centralized exchange platform tokens lead in annualized returns. As one of the most mature business models in the crypto space, exchange tokens serve both investment purposes and allow participation in mining, DeFi, and other ecosystems of the exchange, while also directly empowering investors through reductions in trading fees. Conversely, platform tokens further unify the interests of retail investors and exchanges, becoming an important means for exchanges to acquire customers and build ecosystems.

Annualized returns narrative for 2024:

As of January 22, 2025, the total market capitalization of centralized exchange platform tokens has reached $138.1 billion. According to Coingecko data, there are currently 58 types of centralized exchange platform tokens. Among them, BNB holds the top position with a market capitalization of $101.1 billion. Bitget's platform token BGB surged over 100% last year, ranking third and becoming one of the fastest-growing platform tokens. In contrast, the WEEX exchange platform token WEEX Token (WXT), which launched in July 2024, currently has a circulating market capitalization of only $7.853 million, less than 1% of BNB, which is inconsistent with the rapid growth of WEEX's user base and trading volume, creating a value gap for the platform token.

Following the power of platform tokens, exploring the successful paths of leading platform tokens and seeking opportunities in potential platform tokens may represent a higher risk-reward investment strategy.

Hexagonal Warriors: Core Functions of Platform Tokens

The platform tokens of exchanges have numerous functions, which can generally be divided into three aspects: optimizing trading experience, broadening revenue sources, and expanding the community.

The most direct function of platform tokens is to serve as the "points system" of the exchange, allowing users to exchange for discounted trading fees and access other advanced trading services. For project parties, holding a certain amount of platform tokens is essential to list on the exchange. For exchanges, their own platform tokens can increase revenue and attract users. From this perspective, the demand for platform tokens is directly positively correlated with the total trading volume of the exchange.

Platform tokens can also expand the ways users earn within the exchange ecosystem, such as purchasing financial products within the platform, participating in the exchange's Launchpool to earn mining or airdrop rewards, etc. As an investment in the exchange, platform tokens themselves will appreciate with the development of the exchange, making them a "blue chip" in the crypto market.

Moreover, platform tokens are an important channel for exchanges to connect users and the community. Most platform tokens have a burning mechanism, akin to a stock buyback, returning trading fees to platform token holders. In certain trading platforms, platform token holders can participate in the community and engage in the decision-making process for every issue and resolution.

The Success Path of BNB: From a Token to the Center of the Exchange Ecosystem

As the pioneer of platform tokens, many of the functions of platform tokens trace back to Binance. Zhao Changpeng founded Binance in July 2017. In the same month, the native token was created through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), named Binance Coin (BNB). The ICO issued a total of 200 million tokens, raising $15 million. Initially, this was an ERC-20 token based on Ethereum, interoperable with existing Ethereum wallets and infrastructure. In April 2019, Binance announced the launch of its own blockchain network, Binance Chain, and migrated BNB from the Ethereum network to Binance Chain. This marked a significant transformation for BNB, turning it into the native cryptocurrency of Binance Chain.

Since its launch in 2017, BNB's price has experienced rapid growth, primarily due to the continuous expansion of the Binance exchange and the growing user base. The functions of BNB have also been continuously increasing; it has not only become the center of the Binance ecosystem but is also gradually expanding beyond the ecosystem.

Within the Binance ecosystem, BNB plays an important role on the exchange and Binance Chain:

1. BNB can be used to pay trading fees on Binance and Binance DEX, enjoying a 25% discount (the discount will gradually decrease over time).

BNB Holdings and Binance Membership System:

2. Pay trading fees on Binance Chain and Binance Smart Chain. BSC further elevates BNB to a PoS token, achieving a new PoSA (Proof of Staked Authority) consensus driven by validators and delegators.

3. Powering hundreds of projects running on Binance Smart Chain. Use BNB for trading in DeFi, liquidity pools, decentralized exchanges (DEX), or as a payment tool in NFT markets.

4. Binance Finance, where BNB can be used to purchase various independent products, such as Staking, Launchpool, BNB Vault, or Liquid Swap, providing a great source of passive income.

5. Crypto payments, the Binance Card is a cryptocurrency Visa debit card that allows users to pay for shopping, bills, mortgages, and almost anything else with BNB. BNB can be used for payments at over 40 million merchants worldwide.

6. As collateral, quickly obtain simple and direct cryptocurrency loans without hidden fees or costs. Collateralizing BNB can allow borrowing of BTC, ETH, BUSD, USDT, etc., with loan terms ranging from 7 to 180 days.

Outside the Binance ecosystem, BNB is striving to expand its footprint as a daily payment currency. For example, through Travala.com, users can purchase flight tickets, pay for hotel expenses, and even rent cars using BNB. Hundreds of online vendors and merchants accept BNB as payment for goods or services.

Among these, the financial role of BNB backed by Binance Exchange and Binance Smart Chain is worth detailing, with Binance Launchpad and Launchpool being the most representative.

Binance Launchpad was established in 2019 to introduce a new way of cryptocurrency crowdfunding. Binance Launchpool was launched in 2020, allowing users to lock their assets to earn new assets in return. Binance was the first platform to introduce Initial Exchange Offerings (IEOs).

CapitalismLab has compiled BNB-based returns from 2021 to May 2023, showing that the annualized return of BNB Launchpad can actually be benchmarked against ETH staking returns. Over approximately two and a half years since 2021, if tokens were sold on the first day, the total return rate for BNB-based investments would be 36%, with an annualized return of 14%, slightly higher than the ETH staking returns during the same period. If the returns from Launchpool mining and selling are added, the total return rate for BNB-based investments would be 52%, with an annualized return of 21%, which is more than double the ETH staking returns during the same period.

Although debates about Binance Launchpad have never ceased in the market, the wealth effect it once created has gradually pushed BNB to the center of the ecosystem.

At the same time, to give back to the community, BNB has a burning mechanism. There are two methods for BNB burning: BNB Quarterly-burn (quarterly BNB burn) and BEP-95 - burning a portion of BNB as gas fees on the BNB chain. In December 2021, Binance officially launched the BNB automatic burning mechanism, replacing the original quarterly BNB burning mechanism. The BNB automatic burning method will adjust the amount of BNB burned based on BNB price and supply-demand fluctuations. This means that if the price of BNB falls, the amount of BNB burned will increase to ensure balance. As of January 23, 2025, a total of 2,141,487.27 BNB has been automatically burned.

Through the integration of exchanges and ecological chains, BNB has become the sixth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization in the crypto space, with a growth rate of 135.45% over the past year.

Value Capture Ability + Growth Potential: Finding Value Gaps in Platform Tokens

By reviewing the price increases of platform tokens over the past year, we find that besides BNB, BGB has performed outstandingly, with the combination of value capture and growth potential being the main factors for the significant price increase of emerging platform tokens.

Bitget Token (BGB) is the only platform token for the Bitget centralized exchange and Bitget Wallet decentralized ecosystem. Similar to BNB, BGB also has multiple ecological rights, including: staking BGB through Bitget Launchpool to receive airdrops of popular tokens; using BGB to participate in Bitget PoolX to earn passive income; holding BGB to receive airdrops of on-chain tokens from Bitget Wallet Fair Launchpool; participating in early subscriptions for potential projects using BGB through Bitget Launchpad; using BGB to pay for Bitget spot trading fees with a 20% discount; staking BGB to enjoy free withdrawals from Bitget daily; holding BGB to upgrade Bitget VIP levels and unlock more benefits; and Bitget trading experts holding BGB can unlock up to 10% of the profit from copy trading.

From the perspective of value capture, Bitget's user base and trading volume are growing rapidly. At the beginning of 2023, Bitget's market share was only 2%, but now its derivatives market share has risen to 12.73%, and its spot market share has risen to 3.67%. Through a more aggressive listing strategy and high-quality product services, Bitget has risen against the trend in the bear market, capturing more value for its platform token.

From the perspective of growth potential, based on the horizontal ecological advantages of the original Bitkeep wallet, ForesightNews, and Forsights Ventures, BGB has vast ecological expansion space. In terms of on-chain applications, BGB will be deeply integrated with the Bitget Wallet application scenarios, such as using BGB to pay on-chain gas fees and participate in on-chain staking; in terms of payments, BGB will be deeply integrated with Bitget Pay, Bitget credit card, and other payment solutions, allowing direct payments in various consumption scenarios such as restaurants, travel, refueling, and shopping.

At the same time, on December 27, 2024, Bitget announced it would burn 800 million BGB tokens held by the core team in one go, accounting for 40% of the total supply of BGB. After the burn, the total supply of BGB will be reduced to 1.2 billion, and 100% will be in circulation. Additionally, BGB will initiate quarterly buybacks and burns; starting in 2025, Bitget will use 20% of the quarterly profits from its exchange and wallet business to buy back and burn BGB. The token burn acts as a reassurance for the community.

The value capture and growth potential are directly reflected in the price of the platform token. On July 26, 2021, BGB was officially launched at an initial price of 0.0585 USDT. In just over three years, BGB's highest price has surpassed 7.9 USDT, with a cumulative increase of over 100 times.

The Next BGB: High Growth and Undervalued Potential Platform Token WXT

WEEX Token (WXT) is the platform token issued by WEEX exchange. By holding and using WXT, users can enjoy trading fee discounts, receive new project token airdrops for free, and gain priority access to new listings and other value-added services.

From the perspective of value capture, the user base and trading volume of WEEX exchange have also surged, currently ranking fourth among derivative exchanges on Coingecko. According to real-time data from CoinMarketCap, WEEX's trading volume ranks sixth among derivative exchanges. Currently, WEEX has over 5 million registered users, covering more than 30 countries and regions globally, with an average daily trading volume exceeding $1 billion. The platform began achieving stable profits as early as the "crypto winter" of 2022 and has maintained a high growth rate of 100% in monthly trading volume. It offers over 700 perpetual contracts, more than Binance, Bybit, and Bitget, and has 826 trading pairs in spot trading.

Additionally, whether in terms of fee reductions or financial functions, WXT's offerings are stronger than those of BNB and BGB. WEEX is one of the exchanges with the lowest fees in the market, currently allowing WXT holders to enjoy up to a 70% discount on trading fees.

WE-Launch (formerly Launchpool) is one of the important use cases for WXT, where WXT holders can receive free airdrops of tokens from popular projects before they launch. So far, WEEX has launched 67 WE-Launch projects, with annualized returns for projects like LTD, BA, NEIRO, THR, and FLOKI exceeding 200%, and NEIRO reaching as high as 402%.

In the future, users holding WXT will have priority access to new coin offerings through WEEX Launchpad. According to WEEX's 2024 WE-Launch and airdrop plans, holders of WXT can achieve annualized returns as high as 140%.

"Sunshine" is another exclusive benefit for WXT holders, with periodic airdrops of popular project tokens, USDT, and contract experience funds. So far, WEEX has conducted 7 rounds of "Sunshine" activities, cumulatively airdropping 90,000 USDT and 110,000 USDT in experience funds to WXT holders.

It is worth noting that, unlike other platform token activities, users do not need to lock or stake WXT to participate in WE-Launch and "Sunshine"; they only need to register at any time during the activity period to participate successfully, and the WXT held by users can be traded or withdrawn at any time after participation.

From the perspective of growth potential, in 2023, WEEX began localized operations in the Korean and Vietnamese markets. In 2024, WEEX hired former MEXC Global VP Andrew Weiner as VP, leveraging Andrew's extensive industry resources and market experience to accelerate the expansion into the North American market.

WEEX holds multiple financial compliance licenses. With a rich selection of trading currencies, top-notch depth experience, and ultra-low fee advantages, WEEX has attracted communities such as K9 Finance DAO, BleedingCrypto Community, and SamPrice Community to become channel partners, leading to rapid growth in its global user base. At the same time, WEEX has launched the WEEX Masons program for global crypto influencers to further expand its channel partner network.

WXT has a total supply of 10 billion tokens, with an issuance price of $0.01 and an initial circulating supply of 3.9 billion tokens. Among them, the investor safety fund accounts for 25%, which is not locked; the partner ecological fund accounts for 15%, which will be released over 5 years; the remaining tokens will be released linearly over 10 years.

WXT is set as a global ecological incentive token, with 60% of the tokens allocated to active users, partners, and team contributors, and a lock-up period of up to 10 years, covering at least two full crypto bull and bear cycles; the remaining 25% (investor protection fund) does not have a lock-up period, but this portion of funds is clearly also intended for long-term holding, only used to compensate users for unexpected losses in case of extraordinary circumstances. This means that there is no release pressure for WXT in the short term.

At the same time, WXT adopts extreme deflation, with 90% of WXT being repurchased and burned. The white paper promises that WEEX will regularly use a portion of the platform's profits to buy back WXT from the secondary market and permanently destroy it until the total supply is ultimately reduced to 1 billion tokens. The top-tier strength and rapid growth provide solid assurance for WXT's buyback and burn, while the 90% deflation target implies that WXT will appreciate tenfold based on reasonable market valuations.

In horizontal comparison, BNB has a market capitalization of over $100 billion, with a maximum increase of 395,147% since its launch; BGB has a market capitalization of $8.4 billion, with a maximum increase of 2,174%. Currently, WXT's fully diluted market capitalization is only $31 million, with a maximum increase of just 187.72%. Given WXT's current price increase, everything is just beginning.