BNB Chain’s BNB token and PancakeSwap’s CAKE bucked low-volatility market conditions to rally 9.3% and 35% respectively even as bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency, remained rangebound at $96,200.
CAKE has more than doubled over the past seven days, a move coinciding with a spike in trading volume, with $1.1 billion being notched in the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap data.
BNB, meanwhile, flipped Solana’s SOL token in terms of market cap following a series of tweets from Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who hinted at “interacting with memecoins” on the BNB Chain.
The move in BNB and CAKE is correlated because CAKE is the native token of decentralized exchange PancakeSwap, the largest protocol on BNB Chain.
The increase in activity comes as bitcoin experiences a lull. BTC has traded between $95,000 and $98,000 since Feb. 8.
Rangebound price action for BTC typically leads to a rise in activity in alternative cryptocurrencies, or altcoins, because traders tend to look for more speculative bets. In the past 24 hours LIDO, INJ, JTO and HYPE have all gained between 7% and 9%.