Binance has been one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges. Ranked among the top three exchanges in the world, it deals with massive volumes of money, usually going into several Million dollars every day. With these numbers and this kind of traffic, it is almost impossible to think that Binance started off merely last year. In just 143 days of its launch, Binance was among the top 3.

However, despite all these impressive accolades, the name is rarely heard outside the cryptocurrency markets. The growth of Binance has been quite a success story and the platform has been proving that if you give priority to quality management, no one can stop you from succeeding. While those who aren’t aware of cryptocurrency might not be aware of the name, Binance is perhaps the fastest to reach the unicorn status.

You might have heard the term ‘Unicorn’ being thrown around often - companies such as Uber, Airbnb, Xiaomi, Instagram, etc. are often referred to as unicorns. The ‘Unicorn’ status is the term given to a private company which reaches the evaluation of $1 Billion. Interestingly, Binance is way over the $1 Billion evaluation and has now been nearing $2 Billion. Moreover, all of this has been achieved in just six months. It’s a travesty that Binance is never spoken of in the same breath as these ‘unicorns.’

A portion of Binance’s success can be attributed to the fact that the platform has a cryptocurrency of its own - BNB. The BNB cryptocurrency token is traded on Binance just like any other cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. The current price of BNB is around $8 and about 99 Million tokens are floating in the markets - this gives it a market cap of approximately $800 Million.

Moreover, another 199 Million BNB tokens are held by the Binance founders, insiders and early investors. This apparently gives it a total market cap of over $2 Billion while just $800 Million is in circulation for trading. Technically, Binance has crossed $2 Billion in less than half a year - an incredible feat for any unicorn.

There have been many unicorn startups which have gained an evaluation of $1 Billion within a year of their starting. However, perhaps none of them have achieved this massive feat of garnering up to $2 Billion in just six months.

A significant reason behind the success of Binance can also be attributed to the fact that the overall interest in cryptocurrencies is rising. People are investing into cryptos in massive amounts and given the right platform and the proper quality management - Binance has taken up a major chunk of this traffic in a brief time. Binance CEO Zhao Changpeng is an experienced individual himself, having worked in Wall Street software trading systems in the past, as well as with various Chinese Bitcoin startups.

While the overall interest in cryptocurrency has been on the rise and the market cap is all set to reach the $1 Trillion figure, it would be interesting to see when mainstream finance publications begin to accept cryptocurrency startups as significant players in the industry.