Binance Reveals Timeline For BNB Cryptocurrency’s Move Off Ethereum

Binance, a major cryptocurrency exchange, has launched its new custom blockchain. Dubbed as Binance Chain the network will support its $3 billion BNB cryptocurrency, currently running on ethereum.

As per the announcement made on Thursday by the exchange, the BNB will be activated on the new network on April 23. The token holders will be encouraged henceforth to migrate their balances to the new network. The company further stated that the old ethereum-based tokens will be destroyed as new BNB tokens are created on Binance Chain, this will be done to maintain a constant supply across both networks.

The initial total supply for BNB tokens is set to be at  200 million, 48 million of which will be frozen and 11,654,398 of which will be burned on Binance Chain. The  Binance Chain Explorer and Web Wallet will be made public on April 23, and Binance.com will be able to help users with the mainnet swap.

Users will purportedly provide a Binance Chain address for BNB withdrawal requests, wherein the withdrawal then act “as a mechanism to convert ERC-20 BNB tokens into BEP2 BNB tokens.”

The firm added that the users who wish to keep the ERC-20 version of BNB tokens would be required to withdraw it into an ethereum wallet before April 23. After the set date, Binance.com will no longer support the withdrawal of ERC-20 BNB tokens. The exchange elaborated:

“Please note that withdrawn ERC20 BNB tokens will only have temporary usage, as all BNB tokens will be migrated to Binance Chain.”

The timeline of the above events is subject to change, as noted by Binance. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao explained in a recent live ask-me-anything (AMA) chat on Twitter:

“Binance Coin on the Binance Chain is the same as the Ethereum coin on the Ethereum network. You will have to use it to pay for network transactions, as gas.”

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Image source: Binance Twitter