Exchange tokens have been around for at least four years but 2021 was the year they made an indelible mark in the crypto market and that is thanks to BNB. The exchange token of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, saw an incredulous run that saw it fly from around $40 in January of 2021 to over $650 by April.
That run pushed the token into the 10 most valuable cryptocurrencies and also gave the Binance Smart Chain an enormous amount of exposure and popularity. BNB currently sells at around $390, about half the price from its all-time high and with a market capitalization of over 69 billion dollars making it the fourth most valuable cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether.
If you missed BNB, there are other exchange tokens with a low Mcap and high potentials that are worth looking at.
What are Exchange Tokens?
The term “exchange tokens” is used to describe crypto tokens that are created by crypto exchanges. It is a digital asset that is native to a cryptocurrency exchange. There are a number of reasons why an exchange might decide to create a token and some of these tokens are sometimes distributed to users as airdrops.
Most exchanges however create these tokens specifically to increase the liquidity of the exchange. In other cases, it is used to create incentives for users as well as for governance purposes.
The concept of exchange tokens was first introduced by Binance in 2017 before long Kucoin followed with their KCS and since then almost every exchange has launched its own token. Without much ado let’s look at some exchange tokens that are worth throwing your $$ at.
FTT (FTX token)
FTT is the native token of the FTX Exchange. Founded in 2019 by Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX is one of the largest centralized crypto exchanges in the world. It is especially popular among Futures traders. FTT is the backbone of the FTX ecosystem. The team has carefully designed the incentive schemes to increase network effects, demand for FTT, and decrease its circulating supply.
Some of these schemes include burning FTT used to pay for transaction fees and charging lower transaction fees to users who hold FTT for a certain period of time. The token has a maximum supply of 352 million and a market cap of 4 billion which leaves modest room for growth. A 10X run would bring the Market cap to around 40 billion, half the market cap of BNB.
Huobi Token
Huobi Token, or HT, is the native token of the Huobi exchange, one of the largest crypto exchanges in Asia. The token was created on the Ethereum blockchain and is decentralized. It is a blockchain-powered loyalty point system that supports Huobi Global business and all related products, such as VIP discounts, HT exclusive events, as well as trading against popular coins. The coin currently sells for around $7 and has an Mcap of $1.1B. Huobi recently shut down operations in China due to a government crackdown on cryptocurrencies but has since unveiled plans to continue its operations from friendlier climes.
KCS
I probably shouldn’t say this but this is my favorite. KCS is the native token of Kucoin, an exchange that is fondly called, ‘the home of gems’. Kucoin is one exchange that is rarely in the news for the wrong reasons and its exchange token has slowly crept into the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap.
The token currently sells for around $20 but with a market cap that is still below 2 billion dollars, there is still enormous room for growth. KuCoin Token (KCS) is the key to the entire KuCoin ecosystem (KCC).
It’s also the native asset on KuCoin’s decentralized financial services as well as the governance token of the KuCoin community. Recently Kucoin began allowing users to stake KCS so as to be eligible for IEOs.
A fork of Binance’s BNB Launchpad. The token is still very much undervalued.
OKT
OKT, the native token of the OKExChain ecosystem is one of the newest entrants to the exchange token markets. OKT is the token powering the Okex chain and as such it provides users with immediate utility and benefits such as staking privileges and voting rights.
The token is also employed to pay for transaction fees on decentralized exchanges and other DeFi applications built on the network. The token currently sells for $16 and has a sizeable Mcap of about $4B. It’s one exchange token that has seen a lot of growth in 2021 and seems primed for more growth in the coming months.
UNISWAP
Let’s not focus entirely on centralized exchange tokens, some decentralized exchanges have tokens as well. Uniswap is perhaps the most successful decentralized application in crypto. Sure, the gas fees are a turn-off but there is no denying the massive impact the DEX has had on crypto. Built on Ethereum, Uniswap is the most valuable DEX in the world and its native token is UNI. The token has an Mcap of $6B and currently sells for around $10. It’s still far from its ATH of $43 which it attained in April.
Cake
Cake is the native token of Pancakeswap, a Uniswap fork on the Binance Smart Chain. Pancakeswap is the most popular and most widely used DAPP in the BSC ecosystem due to its low gas fees and an array of coins on offer. The DEX is widely popular among developers of meme coins and the price of Cake spiked in early 2021 during the meme coin season that saw the creation of new tokens almost every hour. The token currently sells for $7 and has a modest market cap below $1.3B.
CRO
CRO is the native token of Crypto.com and serves as both the flagship token and the ecosystem that revolves around the exchange. Crypto.com was founded in Hong Kong in 2016 and has since grown to be one of the most popular exchanges for Bitcoin and Ethereum.
The exchange only recently signed sponsorship agreements with PSG, one of the largest football clubs in Europe worth $30M. The deal would see CRO pay PSG a substantial amount of that money using their native token, CRO.
The exchange has other sponsorship deals with Serie A and Formula 1 teams. These deals will give the exchange and its native token more exposure and likely lead to a significant price bump in the future.
Other exchange tokens worth of mention are GT, the native token of Gate, and MXC, the native token of MEXC exchange.