Publicly traded companies are increasingly accumulating BNB, the native token of Binance’s layer-1 blockchain BNB Chain.
On Wednesday, shares of biotech firm Applied DNA Sciences jumped over 50% during the trading day, after the company revealed the purchase of 4,908 BNB (BNB) tokens valued at roughly $5.3 million.
The announcement followed the close of a $27 million private investment in public equity (PIPE) backed by institutional DeFi and TradFi investors.
The financing combined $15.3 million in cash and stablecoins with $11.7 million in OBNB Trust units, giving the company indirect ownership of roughly 10,647 BNB. The BNB-linked warrants remain subject to shareholder approval before the tokens can be formally transferred.
The company plans to use the net proceeds from the PIPE to implement a “yield-focused treasury strategy with significant direct and BNB equivalent exposure,” according to CFA Chief Investment Officer Patrick Horsman.
The pivot comes a day after CEA Industries Inc., a Canadian vape company, announced it had acquired 500,000 BNB tokens at an average price about $870 per token.
CEA, which announced its pivot to a BNB treasury company in July, is currently the largest BNB treasury company, and claims a goal of owning 1% of the total supply by the end of the year.
On Oct. 13, Bloomberg reported that China Renaissance Holdings Ltd., an investment bank based in Beijing, was in talks to raise about $600 million to form a digital-asset treasury (DAT) in the US to accumulate BNB.
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BNB hit all-time high despite criticism
The surge in institutional interest in BNB has coincided with a rise in the token’s price. On Oct. 7, BNB flipped Ripple-backed XRP to become the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Less than a week later, on Oct. 13, BNB hit a new all-time high of $1,370.
Commenting on the price action, CEA Industries CEO David Namdar told Cointelegraph that BNB was the “most overlooked blue-chip in the market,” and that the rally reflected the market catching up to the token’s fundamentals.
But despite the optimism around BNB, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume has faced backlash from users in recent weeks over its performance during the market crash.
After the Oct. 12 crypto crash saw about $19 billion liquidated from the market, Binance was criticized for technical glitches, the temporary depegging of Ethena’s synthetic stablecoin, USDe (USDE), and several altcoins crashing to zero $0.0 on the exchange due to technical issues.
The exchange responded to the criticisms by launching a $400 million relief program for eligible traders and institutions affected, as well as a $45 million BNB airdrop for memecoin traders who suffered losses during the crash.
At the time of writing, BNB is trading around $1,080, down roughly 21% from its all-time high.
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