As the founder and largest shareholder of Binance, CZ's every word and action could potentially affect market sentiment and trends. Recently, CZ has been continuously promoting BNB Chain on Twitter, launching meme coins on Binance Smart Chain, emphasizing the technical superiority and ecosystem potential of BNB Chain, outlining a development roadmap for 2025, and attracting widespread market attention. Driven by CZ's efforts, the ecosystem tokens of BNB Chain have experienced a collective surge, reaching a new high for the year.

Every time CZ speaks, it's like a "depth charge," causing ripples in the crypto market. From bold statements like "BNB Chain has been imprisoned for too long, it's time to break free" to a shift in attitude towards meme coins, CZ's return has undoubtedly injected a shot in the arm for BNB Chain. Whether this ecosystem frenzy sparked by the "CZ effect" is just a flash in the pan or the starting point for BNB Chain's return to the peak remains to be seen.

CZ's Return, BNB Chain's Resurgence

To trace back this wave of BNB Chain enthusiasm, we must mention TST. TST, Test Token, was initially just a token used in a video demonstrating how to issue memes on the Four platform, but the video inadvertently exposed TST's contract address, allowing everyone to keenly seize a hint of opportunity. Quickly, TST transformed from an overlooked test coin into a hype focus, and TST's market attention rapidly surged. When CZ made a statement on social media clarifying that TST was not an officially supported project by Binance, what should have been a cooling moment turned into a catalyst for TST to reignite, further enhancing its reputation in the community. On February 6, its market cap was only $500,000. CZ's response to the TST token briefly pushed its market cap above $50 million. Subsequently, on February 9, Binance announced the listing of TST. TST's market cap skyrocketed, surpassing $500 million in just 3 days, with an over 100x increase.

With TST driving the activity of BNB Chain as a prelude, on February 11, CZ announced on Twitter, "BNB Chain has been imprisoned for too long, it's time to break free," and on the 12th, he released the target areas for the 2025 BNB Chain build, sparking strong market expectations for ecosystem upgrades. On the 11th, BNB surpassed $640, with a 5.75% increase in 24 hours, reaching a peak price of $725 today, signaling a significant resurgence in market interest.

After the launch of TST on Binance, BNB Chain ecosystem tokens have started to surge across the board, dominating the top gainers' list on major exchanges. Below are some of the hot projects worth paying attention to, selected by the author.

CAKE

PancakeSwap is one of the most popular AMM protocols on the BNB Chain and a widely used DEX in the entire DeFi industry. CAKE is the native token of the PancakeSwap platform. PancakeSwap features low transaction fees (0.2% trading fee) and rich functionalities such as farms, lotteries, an NFT marketplace, etc. Its trading volume and user activity continue to lead. On the 13th, the market capitalization of CAKE reached as high as $7 billion, with a 38% 24-hour increase at the time of writing.

BAKE

BakerySwap is an automated market maker with liquidity mining on the Binance Smart Chain, and BAKE is the platform's native BEP-20 governance token. BakerySwap is an iteration of Uniswap, similar to Uniswap but faster and cheaper. Moreover, BakerySwap also has a robust NFT marketplace, including digital art NFTs, gamified NFTs, and the latest featured artist collections. The BAKE token saw a sudden surge on the 12th evening, with the market capitalization rising from around $110 million to a peak of $232.48 million within 2 hours, a growth of over 100%.

THE

Thena is a decentralized exchange and liquidity protocol on the BNB Chain, the first project launched on Binance after CZ's release from prison. Benefiting from the technical support of the BNB Chain, Thena's advantage lies in its low fees and high performance. The platform also supports liquidity pools for various token pairs and attracts users through a dynamically adjusted yield strategy. The THE token also saw a rapid surge on the evening of the 12th, with a peak market capitalization of $256.67 million and a 115% surge within 24 hours.

BNX

BNX is the token of BinaryX, a Web3 gaming platform that combines Decentralized Finance (DeFi) with gaming, allowing players to earn cryptocurrency through a play-to-earn mechanism. Its potential lies in the increasing popularity of NFT games, coupled with a strong community and innovative gameplay that enables users to enjoy an immersive gaming experience while generating real-world income. BNX has shown a strong upward trend since the evening of the 8th, achieving a roughly 4x increase in price in just 4 days, with its market cap peaking at over $700 million.

The CZ Effect Continues to Gain Momentum, Early Morning "Fake Dog" Meme Craze

In the early morning of February 13th, Twitter user @theveeman asked CZ in the comments if he had a pet dog. CZ replied that he owns a "Belgian Malinois" instead of a Shiba Inu.

This reply quickly sparked community speculation and frenzy, with many users asking about the dog's name and photos, aiming to create related Meme coins ahead of time. After interacting multiple times with the comments, CZ wrote, "I now know the answer. The way this works is very interesting. I will consider for about a day, just like making any major decision. Should I respect its privacy or publicly announce this dog for the sake of the business? Or even possibly interact with a few Meme coins on the BNB Chain."

To uncover the real information about the dog, netizens launched a "carpet search." Some found three dogs and a cat that the Binance team had posted about in 2020, which were pets of Binance members, speculating that one of them might belong to CZ. Some even created an image of a dog named Perry wearing Binance clothing, implying a close relationship with Binance and likely being CZ's dog... Until now, there are still numerous Meme coins claiming to be "CZ's dog" continuously being issued, with some Meme coins briefly surpassing a million dollars in market capitalization.

If CZ does indeed create a Meme coin named after his pet dog, it could replicate the skyrocketing pattern of $TRUMP, further attracting funds to flow into the BNB Chain. The grandiose "fake dog" event reflects the core driving force of Meme coins: celebrity effect + community consensus. Even without official endorsement, users can still promote token price increases through the hype of a "legitimate narrative."

BNB Chain Potential Project Overview

Four.Meme

With CZ and the BNB Chain official's gradual embrace of Meme, and the mention of Meme in the 2025 roadmap, Four.Meme benchmarks against Pump.fun on Solana. In the future, a large number of Memes will be launched on it, so keeping an eye on the hot trends on Four.Meme would be a good investment direction. Currently, Four.Meme launches an average of 1k-2k Memes per day, with a launch rate of about 5%, meaning 50-100 successfully reach external exchanges.

It is worth mentioning that the Four.Meme team also provides exposure and liquidity support for some excellent projects. Therefore, paying attention to the Alpha Boost on the official website is also a way to screen for high-quality Meme targets.

AICELL

AICELL is the first AI Agent token and AI Meme on the BNB Chain, with nearly a 10x rebound from the low point to the current price. The current market value is $20 million, and one can wait for the right time to enter. As the BNB Chain envisions AI and Meme as future directions, AICELL is a target worth watching.

Emerging Memes and Community Coins

BOB: Meme Coin themed after the BNB Mascot

BOB (Build on BNB) is a Meme coin themed after the "BNB Mascot," with its design closely integrated with the BNB brand, making it highly recognizable. BOB has a highly active community, often retweeting articles from CZ and the BNB Chain official account, and is suspected to have been promoted by the official account. The current market value of BOB is about $8.5 million, relatively small in scale, but the community's activity provides a good liquidity foundation. The investment value of BOB mainly lies in its close connection with the BNB brand and the community's activity. Furthermore, with the widespread hype around the "Build" concept, BOB may see growth.

CHEEMS: Binance-Powered Meme Coin

CHEEMS is a community-driven Meme coin on the BNB Chain, known for its cute image and widespread community adoption. CHEEMS has an active community backing and was listed on the Binance exchange, further enhancing its liquidity and market attention. Its success is partly attributed to a strong marketing strategy and community outreach efforts. The investment value of CHEEMS lies in its robust community base and Binance exchange support, making it more suitable for investment by secondary trading players on CEX.

 KOMA: Emerging Meme Coin on BNB Chain

 KOMA combines current Meme culture with technological trends such as AI or community cultural memes, attracting an incremental user base. KOMA currently has a market valuation of around $40 million and is a well-known and highly consensual Meme on the BNB Chain, with potential future listing on the Binance exchange.

The Base Chain, leveraging Coinbase's background and low-cost advantages, quickly became a star project on the Ethereum Layer2. However, BNB Chain has recently rivaled the Base Chain in trading volume and user activity, especially during the surge of Meme coins and DeFi projects. Meme coins on the BNB Chain attracted a large amount of retail capital, driving on-chain gas fees and transaction volumes surge; projects like PancakeSwap, Thena, among others, further solidified BNB Chain's position in the DeFi space by introducing MEV protection, liquidity incentives, and other mechanisms.

Solana became one of the most prominent public chains in 2024 due to its high throughput and low fees, but its ecosystem overly relies on Meme coins, and network stability issues occur frequently. If the BNB Chain can achieve sub-second block times by 2025 and attract users and funds with a more diverse ecosystem application (such as DeFi, GameFi, AI), it could potentially surpass Solana in throughput and fees, ascending to a higher-tier public chain.

With CZ's return, BNB Chain has regained market attention through technological upgrades, ecosystem openness, and the Meme craze. In the short term, the speculative frenzy around Meme coins may bring volatility, but in the long term, BNB Chain, with its combination of "high throughput, low fees, compliance," is expected to stand out in multi-chain competition and become the core force of the next-generation public chain ecosystem.

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