BNB, the native cryptocurrency of the BNB Chain developed by Binance, reached a historic milestone on Friday as its price surged to an unprecedented $1,111.90. The token, which has become one of the largest in the market, climbed more than 7.4% in the past 24 hours and has soared 17.5% over the past week, according to CoinGecko data. This rally coincides with a renewed wave of institutional interest. Analysts noted that treasury companies have been accumulating BNB, particularly since the coin’s previous all-time high in July. Regular token burns conducted by Binance have also been cited as a major driver of price appreciation, with some predicting even more growth ahead. Predictions Point to Further Upside Standard Chartered projected in May that BNB could peak at $1,275 in 2025, forecasting that its performance would mirror gains in other top cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether. The broader crypto market also participated in Friday’s upswing. Total cryptocurrency market capitalization rose 1.6% to reach $4.2 trillion, highlighting continued investor appetite for digital assets. BNB Chain Metrics Show Robust Growth The rally in BNB’s price is not happening in isolation. Activity on BNB Chain has been climbing sharply, according to DefiLlama. The network’s total locked value (TLV) increased 2.5% in the past 24 hours, topping $8.23 billion. At the same time, the number of active addresses hit 73.24 million last month, the highest level on record. Transaction volumes have also surged. In September, BNB Chain logged 4.34 million transactions, its second-largest monthly tally behind June’s record high. This growth comes despite a recent security scare. The official X account for BNB Chain was compromised on Wednesday, with hackers posting phishing links designed to target crypto wallets. Network Upgrades Aim to Boost Efficiency BNB’s team is also implementing key upgrades to improve network efficiency. On Wednesday, validators and builders operating on the chain adopted a new minimum gas price of 0.05 gwei. According to a post on X, this change is expected to deliver faster and cheaper transactions. “Next step for wallets, CEXs and trading platforms: To adopt 0.05 gwei to align with the network and keep BNB Chain the most attractive home for onchain activity,” the BNB team stated. Looking further ahead, the team plans to increase the block gas limit from 100 million to 1 billion in order to handle rising demand. By 2026, the goal is to create a blockchain architecture capable of processing 20,000 transactions per second with confirmation times under 150 milliseconds. More Upgrades Already Live Two major upgrades have already been implemented this year. The Maxwell upgrade went live in June, designed to produce faster blocks, enhance validator coordination and improve overall performance. It also fueled speculation that another price rally could be imminent. In April, the Lorentz Hard Fork was activated, cutting block times and strengthening validator networking. This adjustment made BNB Chain more suitable for latency-sensitive applications and set the stage for its current growth. The BNB team has also outlined plans for native privacy features, upgradable virtual machines, and more user-friendly tools in 2026, positioning the network as a major competitor in the blockchain space.