Key Points:

  • BNB Chain overtakes Ethereum to become the largest layer1 Blockchain.

  • The number of wallet addresses on the Blockchain has reached 233 million addresses.

  • BNB Chain Application Sidechain (BAS) and Layer 2 zkBNB play a core role.

Despite the crypto winter that is taking hold of the market, BNB Chain still has some impressive achievements, especially as unique wallet addresses have now surpassed Ethereum.

BNB Chain has made significant strides in onboarding the next billion users into #Web3 in 2022. We want to thank our incredible community for coming along for the ride as we lay the groundwork for an even bigger year to come. Further details https://t.co/9jNFdVeoZ3 pic.twitter.com/QjxL3ey759

— BNB Chain (@BNBCHAIN)    December 22, 2022   

According to the data on December 22, the developers of BNB Chain, the blockchain backed by the Binance exchange, reported that the unique addresses on the platform have surpassed the 233 million mark, surpassing Ethereum and becoming the largest layer 1 blockchain in the world.

Number of unique addresses on BNB Chain as of 12/23/2022. Source: BSCscan

Not far behind, its biggest rival Ethereum currently has more than 217 million unique addresses, according to Etherscan.

Number of unique addresses on Ethereum as of December 23, 2022. Source: Etherscan

Notable achievements include the network reaching 9.8 million transactions per day in May 2022 and 2.2 million daily active users (DAU) in October 2022, with a defined DAU is the number of unique addresses per day that interact with the smart contract.

Developers credit the network’s success in 2022 to a number of rapidly-deploying initiatives, where a sidechain solution called BNB Chain Application Sidechain (BAS) and Layer 2 zkBNB play a core role.

In addition, the release of a fresh idea like the first Soulbound Token on BNB Chain, which allows users to register wallet addresses for better KYC purposes increased the platform’s reputation in the Web3 and NFT gaming communities, thereby attracting a large number of users.

Despite the successes just mentioned, BNB Chain is still criticized by many parts of the blockchain community for being too centralized. Although the latest post mentions that the network has added 23 more validators by 2022 and plans to increase that number to 60 in the coming months to solve this problem. However, in terms of decentralization, BNB Chain is far behind Ethereum with more than 400,000 validators.