BNB's story (originally “Binance Coin”) is closely tied to the Binance exchange's history. Binance was founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao (“CZ”) and Yi He — CZ previously founded Fusion Systems and served as CTO of OKCoin.
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Jul. 2017: ICO raises ~$15M; 50% of the 200-million supply sold in the public offering.
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Apr. 18, 2019: BNB migrates from Ethereum to its own Binance Chain/Smart Chain (renamed BNB Chain in Feb. 2022).
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Nov. 2023: CZ steps down as CEO under a settlement with US authorities (DOJ, FinCEN, OFAC) — pleads guilty to AML violations, pays $50M, serves 4 months; Binance agrees to a $4.3B settlement.
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2025: CZ receives a presidential pardon; current leadership: Richard Teng (CEO) and Yi He (co-leader).
BNB started as a simple exchange fee-discount token, but has grown into the native asset of a full standalone Layer 1 smart-contract platform.