The Evolution and Criticism of Binance Smart Chain

Binance Smart Chain is the third largest chain by TVL and its token, BNB, is the third-largest token by market capitalization. However, there are questions about hacks, centralization, lack of developer support, and sketch MEV transactions. On Unchained, Gwendolyn Regina, investment director of the Binance Smart Chain Growth Fund, and Samy Karim, ecosystem coordinator at Binance Smart Chain, give a candid interview discussing BSC, from its amazing growth in 2021 to some of the toughest questions surrounding the chain. Topics covered include:

• how and why BSC grew from 50,000 daily active users to about 7 million over the course of 2021
• what differentiates Binance Chain and Binance Smart Chain
• why Binance Smart Chain decided to design its blockchain with only 21 validators
• how Gwen and Samy envision BSC fitting into a multichain future
• what plans BSC has to scale its throughput 
• why blockchain gaming is so important to BSC and how it will use its $1 billion growth fund to grow the gaming aspect of the chain
• how BSC’s relationship between Binance and BNB works 
•  

In the second half of the show, Sam and Gwendolyn respond to a few critiques, such as:

• is BSC really innovating, or is it just a copy and paste blockchain of Ethereum?

• why are there so many failed transactions on BSC?
• how is BSC addressing the numerous hacks on the blockchain?
• why has BSC’s share of total value locked among smart contract blockchains fallen from 20% in May to 6%? 
• how is BSC attempting to help developers, who, according to some critical posts, are struggling to work with BSC?
• why does it appear that some validators are front running without risk?
• does BSC have a future if Ethereum scales? 
• what does BSC have planned for 2022?

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Episode Links

Gwendolyn Regina

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/gwendolynregina?lang=en
• Website: https://www.gwendolynregina.com/

Samy Karim

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samsulkarim/ 
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/cryp7omaxi 

Binance Smart Chain

• Website: https://www.binance.org/en 
• Documentation: https://docs.binance.org/index.html 
• Binance Validator Reqs: https://academy.binance.com/en/articles/a-quick-guide-to-bnb-staking-on-binance-smart-chain-bsc

• Whitepaper: https://dex-bin.bnbstatic.com/static/Whitepaper_%20Binance%20Smart%20Chain.pdf 

Binance 2021 Recap

• https://twitter.com/gwendolynregina/status/1476089910498971648

Misc

• Top BSC apps: https://dappradar.com/rankings/protocol/binance-smart-chain 

Criticisms

• “Stoned teenager:” https://github.com/binance-chain/bsc/issues/553 
• NullQubit: https://github.com/binance-chain/bsc/issues/658 
• Other
• • Larry Cermak: https://twitter.com/lawmaster/status/1359426876440207361 
  • Wilson Withiam: https://twitter.com/WilsonWithiam/status/1381420702918664194 
  • Ryan Watkins: https://twitter.com/RyanWatkins_/status/1381421858675953665 

BSC Research

• Nansen: https://www.nansen.ai/research/the-binance-smart-chain-scalability-in-action
• Bison Trails: https://bisontrails.co/guide-to-bsc/ 
• Decrypt: 
• • https://decrypt.co/58654/how-binance-put-the-smarts-in-its-smart-chain 
  • https://decrypt.co/57420/binance-smart-chain-is-starting-to-rival-ethereum-heres-why 
• Messari (Pro): https://messari.io/article/exploring-the-binance-smart-chain-ecosystem 
• Galaxy Digital: https://docsend.com/view/tdgbf4sfmyd7sr3m 

Twitter questions I received about Binance Smart Chain

• https://twitter.com/laurashin/status/1480582386677133313 

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