Hash Global In-Depth Research Report: When Will BNB's Market Cap Surpass Ethereum's?

Authors : Jessica Feng , Investment Manager of Hash Global BNBY Fund; James (KK) Shen , Founder of Hash Global

summary

1. BNB is being repositioned from a public blockchain ecosystem token to a core asset of open financial infrastructure.

Looking back over the past nine years, BNB's value proposition has undergone two significant upgrades:

● The first step was to evolve from an exchange platform coin into an ecosystem token centered around BNB Chain;

● The second time is happening. As the BNB ecosystem gradually takes over traditional assets, global investors, and on-chain application scenarios, BNB is further upgrading from an ecosystem token to a value-carrying asset for global open financial infrastructure.

● The uniqueness of the BNB ecosystem lies not only in its public chain performance, but also in its backing by Binance's global network of over 300 million users, and its complete financial closed loop encompassing wallets, trading, payments, DeFi, stablecoins, and RWA. We believe it is one of the Web3 ecosystems closest to "internet-like financial infrastructure."

2. RWA is a key business tool for the BNB ecosystem to grow from 300 million users to 3 billion users.

● Binance's management team has set a goal of growing from 300 million users to 3 billion users. We believe this goal cannot be achieved solely through native crypto asset trading. The biggest incremental growth will come from broader financial assets, a less frictional global account system, and cross-border capital flows driven by stablecoins.

● Over the past year, the BNB ecosystem has gradually established a pathway for RWA: stablecoins provide a funding entry point, global high-quality asset providers offer asset supply, and BNB Chain facilitates on-chain circulation and DeFi protocol integration; the ecosystem's two major wallets, Binance Wallet and Trust Wallet, along with the Binance exchange, provide global users and funding entry points.

● The recently launched US stock trading platform and bStocks have further opened up channels for traditional financial assets to enter the BNB ecosystem and established a replicable standard paradigm, which is expected to become a key catalyst for accelerating the development of this path.

● Therefore, we believe that the BNB ecosystem will enter a new growth cycle, and the added value will ultimately be deposited in the core value carrier of the ecosystem—BNB.

3. We have revised our valuation of BNB upward to $2,968. This report also incorporates a traditional investment framework, which calculates a lower limit for BNB's valuation at $1,471.

● In this update, we first introduce a traditional capital market valuation perspective, calculating BNB's value based on "holder returns" to arrive at a target price of $1,471 , corresponding to a market capitalization of approximately $ 200 billion . We hope to help investors understand BNB's value proposition in a way that is more familiar and easier for them to accept. Since BNB also includes other functional and ecosystem values, we suggest considering this result as the lower limit of BNB's valuation.

● Building on this, we continue to use the Monetary Equation MV=PQ model to assess the full value of BNB as an ecosystem token. Traditional valuation methods cannot fully capture the various functional values inherent in ecosystem assets. We define these assets as "value-functional tokens" and recommend using the Monetary Equation for valuation. We have used this method to publish five consecutive BNB valuation reports over the past seven years. This report updates key parameters to reflect changes in the BNB ecosystem's narrative, value proposition, strategic direction, and business development, ultimately arriving at a new valuation of $2,968 for BNB.

4. The maturation of the digital asset market, the increasing weight of "value" relative to "narrative," and the deepening of institutionalization will jointly drive the discovery of BNB's value. We believe that BNB's market capitalization has the potential to surpass that of ETH.

● As the industry matures, investors will place greater emphasis on real users, real revenue, and clear value capture mechanisms. BNB is one of the few digital assets with a clear value investment logic.

● The combination of RWA, stablecoins, US stock trading, and BNB Chain is expanding BNB's narrative from a core infrastructure in the crypto market to a global open financial infrastructure.

● Institutions are the main force driving the development of the RWA market. With the rapid development of global RWA business, institutions' awareness of and demand for BNB are expected to increase simultaneously, becoming an important driving force for the next stage of BNB value discovery.

● If BNB reaches $2,968, corresponding to a market capitalization of $ 400 billion , it could potentially surpass Ethereum to become the second-largest digital asset. This aligns with our assessment at the beginning of the year: BNB will maintain its relative strength from the past few years, continuing to outperform ETH by approximately 40% this year, with the BNB/ETH relative price rising from 0.28 to 0.40. Looking at a three-year timeframe, BNB has the opportunity to overtake ETH's market capitalization, corresponding to a BNB/ETH relative price of approximately 0.90.

I. Review of the Fifth Report: The target price has not yet been reached, but the fundamentals are steadily improving.

It has been a year since our last BNB valuation report. BNB has not yet reached our previously proposed target price of $2,039. We believe the main reasons include: 1) The overall growth rate of the digital asset industry is slower than expected, the supply of high-quality new assets is declining, and the market is generally sluggish; 2) Funds continue to flow to sectors with clearer growth prospects, such as AI, significantly suppressing the valuation recovery of the crypto market; 3) Institutional funds are understanding and investing in the BNB ecosystem at a slower pace than we expected.

Before updating the valuation, we reviewed the actual changes in the BNB ecosystem over the past year. Overall, some indicators fell short of expectations, but many other key fundamental indicators continued to improve steadily.

1.1. Indicators that did not meet expectations

Of particular note is the slowdown in spot trading volume growth. This metric reflects that Binance's business remains affected by market cycles and the overall performance of the crypto industry, and also indicates that the BNB ecosystem needs to find new growth drivers.

A slowdown in trading volume does not necessarily indicate a contraction in trading demand; rather, it reflects an insufficient supply of high-quality assets. In the future, this gap is expected to be filled by more high-quality RWA assets, thereby opening up new growth opportunities for the BNB ecosystem.

1.2. Unexpected Indicators

At the same time, key operating indicators such as user scale and BNB Chain Gas revenue have maintained rapid growth, indicating that the BNB ecosystem still has a healthy foundation for expansion.

Multiple indicators show that despite sluggish market performance and overall pressure on industry development, the BNB ecosystem has maintained strong resilience.

II. From 300 million to 3 billion users: RWA and stablecoins are the core drivers

Binance aims to grow from 300 million users to 3 billion users, and this cannot rely solely on crypto trading. It needs to provide users with more comprehensive financial services. Individual users require payment, value storage, investment, and asset allocation; institutional users need compliance, liquidity, asset quality, and risk management.

For global financial infrastructure to truly function, the key is to connect three types of elements:

● Funding: Stablecoins. Enabling global users to access the on-chain financial system at a lower cost;

● Assets: RWA. Bringing high-quality assets such as stocks, bonds, gold, funds, and real estate income rights to the blockchain;

● Ecosystem: BNB Chain + DeFi. Enables assets to be traded, mortgaged, lent, market-made, and combined.

This strategic direction began to gradually become clearer starting in 2025. Leveraging its user base, network performance, liquidity, ecosystem support, and brand advantages, the BNB ecosystem achieved rapid breakthroughs in funding, assets, and ecosystem development .

● Funding: BNB Chain is becoming one of the most active stablecoin networks globally. To date, the total value of BNB Chain stablecoins has exceeded $17 billion, representing a growth of approximately 150% since the beginning of 2025. It also handles about 40% of global stablecoin transactions, serving approximately 20 million stablecoin users monthly, ranking among the top public chains in terms of activity.

● Asset Side: BNB Chain's RWA asset scale is growing rapidly. Since 2025, traditional financial institutions such as Circle, BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and VanEck have successively deployed related assets to BNB Chain; at the same time, the BNB ecosystem has cooperated with leading projects such as Ondo and xStocks to continuously expand the supply of on-chain assets.

● Ecosystem: In 2025, BNB Chain repeatedly ranked first among all blockchains in several key metrics, including daily active addresses, address growth rate, and DEX trading volume. Its application footprint has expanded beyond DeFi infrastructure to include AI, RWA, and consumer applications.

These advancements have collectively propelled BNB Chain to become one of the fastest-growing RWA ecosystems over the past year: on-chain RWA assets grew from $3.6 million at the beginning of 2025 to $2 billion in the fourth quarter, and have now surpassed $4 billion, making it the largest RWA public chain outside of Ethereum.

III. RWA (Renminbi) on the US Stock Market: The Most Important Product Validation in Recent Period

In 2026, the BNB ecosystem further deepened its RWA integration and achieved several important advancements at the TradeFi and RWA product levels:

1) Binance launched TradFi perpetual contracts, covering a variety of asset types including commodities (precious metals, energy), US stocks and ETFs, and pre-IPO equity, enabling global users to access the price exposure of traditional financial assets through stablecoins;

2) Binance Wallet launched tokenized securities, partnering with Ondo Global Markets to offer users US stock and ETF tokens;

3) Binance launches real US stock trading. Users can trade real equity assets on the Binance platform without opening a separate traditional brokerage account and holding stablecoins.

The launch of US stock products is of significant product importance: Binance is integrating one of the world's largest capital markets into its existing crypto account system and global liquidity network. For users, this service breaks down the three long-standing barriers to cross-border investment: account opening thresholds, fund access, and trading experience , representing a groundbreaking upgrade in underlying financial infrastructure and investment models.

At the same time, Binance also launched the tokenized product bStocks , which allows users to convert their real-world stock holdings into tokens and connect them to the BNB Chain, enabling static asset holdings to enter the "second lifecycle" of the on-chain financial system.

At this point, the BNB ecosystem has established a complete chain encompassing asset acquisition, trading, on-chain issuance, and DeFi combined applications. Ecosystem synergy is the core competitive advantage of the BNB ecosystem. By integrating CEX traffic entry points, real asset supply, public chain circulation capabilities, and DeFi combined scenarios into a single system, the BNB ecosystem is forming a super ecosystem that is difficult for other single brokerages, exchanges, public chains, and RWA protocols to replicate.

IV. BNB Valuation: A Value Base Based on Holder Returns

The BNB ecosystem boasts a grand narrative, but BNB's value stems not only from this narrative but also from its clear value capture mechanism. BNB is one of the few digital assets with a clear value investment logic, and part of its value can be understood and measured within the traditional financial framework.

It's important to clarify that BNB does not represent equity in Binance, nor does it directly distribute company profits. Therefore, it should not be considered a security, nor can traditional equity valuation methods like PE or PS be applied directly. BNB draws heavily on the operating mechanisms of BTC and ETH, connecting ecosystem participants through a new ecosystem organization model that aligns interests and fosters mutual growth. After nearly nine years of development, BNB's value capture mechanism has been continuously optimized, becoming the de facto driving force behind the BNB ecosystem's development.

From a practical economic perspective, BNB already offers two clear types of returns for its holders. We use this as a starting point to understand the value of BNB within the traditional valuation framework.

1) Automatic Burning: BNB's token economic design has long-term deflationary properties, reducing supply through quarterly automatic burning. This mechanism is determined by on-chain activity and token supply and demand, and is not a buyback linked to company revenue or profits; however, its feedback loop also increases the unit value for remaining holders by reducing the total supply.

2) New Project Subscription Rewards: BNB holders can obtain new project tokens through activities such as Launchpool , HODLer Airdrop, and Megadrop . This type of "participatory" rights distribution is not a traditional cash dividend, but it is essentially the same as distributing ecosystem rights to BNB holders.

Based on official Binance data and real-time data from the Hash Global BNB Income Fund, the estimated automatic burn amount of BNB in 2025 was $4.425 billion, with initial coin offering (ICO) gains of approximately $1.317 billion, resulting in a total return for holders of $5.742 billion. Using the shareholder return rate of traditional financial infrastructure companies as a benchmark—the ratio of cash dividends and share buybacks (if any) to market capitalization—we can inversely deduce BNB's theoretical market capitalization and price. Considering that the BNB ecosystem is no longer limited to trading, we selected TradFi infrastructure companies covering financial services such as trading, payment networks, multi-asset accounts, asset issuance, and asset management as comparable samples to more comprehensively reflect the value proposition of the BNB ecosystem as a comprehensive financial infrastructure. Taking the median of the sample valuation results, we arrive at a fair price for BNB of $1,471 , corresponding to a market capitalization of approximately $ 200 billion .

This method quantifies BNB's ability to provide returns to its holders and references market pricing levels for similar returns to provide a set of reference prices for BNB under a traditional valuation framework. The advantage of this method lies in its fewer assumptions and clear logic, but it also has the following limitations:

1) Benchmarking of yields may be biased. While the sample companies are comparable in terms of business positioning, BNB possesses higher growth potential and a generational advantage in its business model compared to traditional financial infrastructure companies. However, it also faces higher growth risks under its new model. The market may find it difficult to accurately assign a premium or discount accordingly.

2) Static models cannot fully reflect future growth. This model is based on actual data from the most recent year. Since historical data on BNB holder returns is relatively short and significantly influenced by market cycles, project supply, and token prices, long-term forecasts would require numerous subjective assumptions. Therefore, this section uses a static approach to provide a verifiable and comparable price reference with fewer assumptions.

3) Traditional valuation frameworks cannot fully capture the full value of Web3 new assets. BNB not only possesses "asset value" reflected in holder returns, but also functional value as an "ecosystem token," including value generated by transaction fees, gas, and ecosystem participation needs. These values cannot be fully captured by current models.

Therefore, traditional valuation methods can only estimate the clearest and most quantifiable aspects of BNB's intrinsic value. The results are more suitable as a lower limit reference for valuation with solid theoretical support.

V. The Value of BNB as a Core Asset of Open Financial Infrastructure: Calculation Based on the Monetary Equation

To further assess the full value of BNB as an ecosystem token, we continue to use Hash Global's value-utility token valuation model, which has been used for many years. Since Hash Global published its first BNB valuation report in 2019, this valuation model has been well validated by the market.

This model is based on the monetary equation MV=PQ and measures the demand for BNB's currency from three dimensions: ecological economic activity (PQ), total BNB currency circulation (M), and currency circulation efficiency (V). It also uses a discounting method to convert future value increments to the present. Compared to traditional valuation frameworks, this method better reflects the monetary value of BNB in scenarios such as trading, gas, payments, staking, and ecosystem participation.

The core of this valuation update is to incorporate BNB's latest value proposition and the incremental value brought by open financial scenarios into BNB's value assessment. At the same time, we have revised upward or downward adjustments to previously conservative or optimistic parameters based on the actual performance of the BNB ecosystem over the past year, to more accurately reflect changes in fundamentals.

5.1. Model Update: Incremental Value of Core Assets in Open Finance

The value of BNB as a core asset of open financial infrastructure will be incorporated into the model through variable adjustments:

5.2. Parameter Adjustment: Calibrate according to the latest business data.

5.3. Calculation of BNB Theoretical Price

PQ: Total Eco-economic Value of BNB

BNB Ecosystem Total Economic Value (PQ) = Binance Exchange Economic Value + BNB Chain Economic Value

M: Total circulating supply of BNB

Total BNB in circulation (M) = Actual BNB supply × BNB price

BNB Actual Circulating Supply = Theoretical Circulating Supply - Locked Supply

● Theoretical circulating supply = Total supply − Team holdings − Historical cumulative burns (see previous reports)

● Locked Amount = Locked Amount for Trading Discounts + BNB Chain Validator staking + Locked Amount for Exchange Investments/IPOs

BNB Theoretical Price

VI. Valuation Conclusion Explanation

Based on the updated PQ, M, and V assumptions, we estimate the current fair value of BNB to be $2,968. This result reflects an intrinsic value judgment based on currently available data and model assumptions, and is not a short-term price prediction, nor does it take into account external factors such as market liquidity, risk appetite, and the macroeconomic environment.

This valuation adjustment mainly comes from three incremental factors:

1) The impact of new businesses on user growth;

2) TradFi derivatives trading brought new trading volume to Binance exchanges;

3) The potential boost to on-chain economic activities of BNB Chain from businesses such as R WA and bStocks.

It is important to emphasize that the $2,968 figure is not the final price after fully incorporating all potential positive factors. The model has adopted a relatively conservative approach for factors that are difficult to quantify, lack verifiable data, or are still in their early stages. The following potential incremental factors are not included in this valuation:

1) The potential increase in Binance's US stock spot trading fee revenue for PQ;

2) Potential reduction of M due to BNB staking/locking scenarios on the BNB Chain;

3) The potential reduction in M due to the locking up of institutional holdings such as DAT and ETFs;

4) Regarding user growth, compared to the long-term goal of 3 billion users proposed by the Binance management team, a more conservative growth assumption is still adopted;

5) The calculation of turnover rate V assumes that it will remain consistent with 2025 in the future, and does not take into account the possible decrease in actual turnover rate due to the deepening of institutional adoption and the continuous enrichment of application scenarios in the future.

Therefore, the current valuation still has room for further upward revision. The following variables need to be closely monitored going forward:

1) Will BNB be used for payment of transaction fees (↑PQ) in US stock spot trading?

2) Whether TradFi perpetual contract trading volume can continue its current growth trend and become a stable source of new growth in Binance's trading business (↑PQ);

3) After bStocks goes live, will it truly drive economic activities such as on-chain trading, lending, market making, and portfolio strategies (↑PQ)?

4) Will BNB generate new collateral or lock-up demand in RWA and bStocks related scenarios (↓M);

5) Progress of institutional allocation to DAT, ETFs, etc. (↓M);

6) The actual impact of new businesses on user growth (↓M).

If the aforementioned variables continue to improve, BNB's theoretical valuation still has room for further upward revision.

VII. Future Outlook: Increased value weighting and the development of institutional RWA will drive value discovery for BNB.

1. One of the key drivers of BNB's value discovery is that the digital asset market is rebalancing the weight of "narrative" and "value".

● The market remains in a downturn, but this downturn isn't necessarily a bad thing. It will accelerate the industry's rebalancing of narrative and value. In the past, the market was willing to pay a premium for grand narratives; now, institutions and long-term funds will focus more on real users, real revenue, real asset backing, and whether value can be effectively captured by tokens. We believe that as the digital asset market continues to mature, the weight of value will continue to increase.

● We have been firmly bullish on BNB since 2019, primarily because it is one of the few digital assets with a clear value capture mechanism and value investment logic. The BNB ecosystem boasts the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange and one of the most active public blockchain ecosystems, possessing a massive user base and high-frequency economic activity. Multiple scenarios, including platform benefits, launchpools, wealth management, payments, gas, and on-chain applications, continue to empower BNB. Compared to many assets that still primarily rely on narrative-driven growth, BNB's value source is more direct and more verifiable.

2. The rapid development of RWA and the formation of the open finance narrative will prompt institutions to re-evaluate BNB.

● In the past, global institutions had relatively limited access to information about BNB. They were more familiar with the narratives of BTC and ETH as investment assets, and less inclined to understand the value of digital assets from the perspective of classic investment frameworks and real-world business operations. Meanwhile, the development of institutional channels such as digital asset DAT and ETFs also took time, resulting in institutional adoption of the BNB ecosystem outpacing investment in BNB itself. Therefore, BNB's current institutional penetration rate remains very low, far below Bitcoin's 15% and Ethereum's 10%. However, this also means that BNB still has significant room for institutional allocation and growth. As mainstream institutions like VanEck promote BNB ETFs, we expect institutional holdings of BNB to gradually increase, accelerating the discovery of BNB's value.

● Institutions are the main force driving the global RWA business. The deepening of the RWA business will be an important opportunity for BNB to enter the institutional valuation field.

● The combination of RWA, stablecoins, US stock trading, and the BNB Chain makes BNB's narrative more complete: becoming a core asset of the global open financial infrastructure. Compared to the narrative within the crypto market, this narrative is easier for institutions to understand and is more likely to become an entry point for institutions to re-understand BNB.

A target price of $2,968, corresponding to a market capitalization of $400 billion , means that BNB has the potential to surpass ETH and become the second largest digital asset after BTC.

● We have always believed that there are three "one of its kind" assets in the digital asset space: BTC, ETH, and BNB. They represent completely different asset attributes and all possess enormous value. We pay particular attention to the relative price of BNB and ETH because it reflects the market's judgment on the changing weighting of "value" and "narrative" when evaluating digital assets.

● ETH remains important. It remains one of the most decentralized and consensus-driven smart contract assets. However, ETH's narrative is strong, and its actual value capture still requires more verification and objective observation. We believe that ETH is a great thing, similar to Linux; but to become a Linux-like entity, there may be an inherent tension between its neutrality and its ability to capture value.

● At the beginning of the year, we predicted that BNB would continue to outperform ETH by approximately 40% this year, with the BNB/ETH relative price rising from 0.28 to 0.40. Looking at a three-year timeframe, we believe BNB has the potential to surpass ETH's market capitalization, corresponding to a relative price of approximately 0.90.

VIII. Conclusion

BNB is entering a new phase of value. This change is not driven by a single product, but by a set of structural trends: the goal of reaching 300 million to 3 billion users, stablecoins becoming a global gateway for funds, RWA expanding the supply of digital assets, the US stock market business validating the product path, and BNB Chain facilitating on-chain circulation and DeFi integration.

The development of several fundamental indicators for BNB has exceeded our expectations. The temporary slowdown in the growth rate of spot trading is not the end, but rather a period of transition in asset supply and business structure. As more high-quality RWA assets enter the BNB ecosystem, BNB's ecosystem value will gain new sources of growth; demand from payments, collateral, and long-term institutional allocation will further enhance the structural demand for BNB.

We maintain our strong bullish view on BNB and set a three-year price target of $2,968. If this prediction comes true, BNB will no longer be limited to the framework of "exchange platform token" or "Web3 ecosystem token," but is expected to become one of the most important open financial infrastructure assets after BTC.