BNB, Mantle and Aster are leading the rally as the meme coin craze on the BNB Smart Chain rises again.
CoinGecko’s “Made in China” category soared last week, led by digital assets such as BNB, Mantle (MNT), and Aster.
The category, which is made up of cryptocurrencies with strong ties to China, now has a market capitalization of $244 billion, up 5.2% in the past 24 hours, outpacing the broader crypto market, which fell 0.4% in the same period.
MNT, the native token of the Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) network, was the standout performer, surging 42.5% over the past week, reaching a market capitalization of $8.7 billion. This comes shortly after L2 completed its upgrade to OP Succinct in mid-September, making the ByBit-affiliated blockchain the largest zero-knowledge (ZK) rollup with Total Value Lock (TVL).
BNB followed suit, rising 29% to $1,319, just shy of Tuesday’s all-time high of $1,330. This surge pushed BNB’s market capitalization to over $182 billion, making it the third-largest digital asset by market capitalization.
Experts say the broader rally is being driven by both narrative and capital, including increased activity on Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and recent launches of tokens such as STBL and Aster. Astor has gained 19.4% over the past week, giving it a market capitalization of $3.3 billion.
meme coin mania
“Everything related to or built on Binance Chain/BNB has been doing very well, but recent activity has been largely due to memecoin pumping in the BNB ecosystem, with even Binance founder CZ actively working on it,” Jonathan Morgan, senior crypto analyst at StockTwits, told The Defiant.
One that stood out this week was the “4” meme coin, which soared to $300 million in market capitalization in a matter of days. In early 2023, Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao started tweeting “4” to signal his followers to ignore FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt), fake news, and attacks on Binance.
Even CZ’s dog-inspired token, BROCCOLI, soared 45% yesterday and 71% for the week.
Aster Hype
Morgan pointed out that another key driver was Aster, the newest perpetual decentralized exchange (DEX) backed by Binance-affiliated YZi Labs, whose TVL quickly rose to over $2.4 billion.
“Aster rose quickly to challenge and replace the now reigning DEX king, Hyperliquid, overnight,” Morgan said. “Aster’s rise can be directly attributed to BNB. They have been moving in sync in a kind of ‘too good to be true’ way.”
George Keenan, vice president of narrative and market strategy at Hype, echoed Morgan’s sentiments. “The answer is high-level narrative momentum leading to disproportionately large capital inflows from Solana to BSC,” Keenan said.
He explained that BNB reaching an all-time high, the launch of the Aster token, and the BSC meme coin craze all culminated in “China Season.”
“We expect this situation to subside in the coming weeks as tokens cannot rise forever, profits are taken and inflows from Solana are not unlimited. However, we do see Solana gaining a huge amount of mindshare and momentum,” Keenan said.