BNB, Mantle, and Aster lead gains amid a renewed memecoin frenzy on BNB Smart Chain.
The “Made in China” category on CoinGecko rallied sharply this past week, led by digital assets such as BNB, Mantle (MNT), and Aster.
This category, which comprises cryptocurrencies with strong ties to China, now has a total market cap of $244 billion, up 5.2% over the past 24 hours and outperforming the broader crypto market, which has declined 0.4% during 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 to a market capitalization of $8.7 billion. This comes shortly after the L2 completed its upgrade to OP Succinct in mid-September, making the ByBit-affiliated blockchain the largest zero-knowledge (ZK) rollup by total value locked (TVL).
BNB followed, rallying 29% to $1,319, just shy of its all-time high of $1,330 set on Tuesday. The surge has pushed BNB’s market cap above $182 billion, making it the third-largest digital asset by market capitalization.
Experts say the broader rally is being fueled by both narrative and capital – including growing activity on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and the recent launches of tokens like STBL and Aster. Aster has climbed 19.4% over the past week to a market cap of $3.3 billion.
Memecoin Mania
“Anything associated with or built on the Binance Chain/BNB is doing very well, but you can mostly attribute the recent activity to the memecoin pump in BNB’s ecosystem, even Binance’s founder, CZ, is active in it,” Jonathan Morgan, Senior Crypto Analyst at Stocktwits, told The Defiant.
A standout this week was the “4” memecoin, which surged to a $300 million market capitalization in a matter of days. In early 2023, Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao began tweeting “4” to signal to his followers to ignore FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt), fake news, and attacks on Binance.
Even BROCCOLI – a token inspired by CZ’s dog – surged 45% yesterday and 71% over the week.
Aster Hype
Morgan noted that another significant driver is Aster, the newest perpetual decentralized exchange (DEX) backed by Binance-linked YZi Labs that rapidly soared to a TVL of over $2.4 billion.
“Aster has risen quickly and now challenges the reigning perp DEX king, Hyperliquid, supplanting it overnight,” Morgan said. “Aster’s rise can be directly attributed to BNB’s – they’ve moved in sync in a kind of ‘too-good-to-be-true’ fashion.”
George Keenan, the Vice President of Narrative and Market Strategy at Hype, echoed Morgan’s sentiment. “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 Aster token launch, and the BSC memecoin frenzy have all culminated in “China season.”
“I’d expect this to cool off in the coming weeks as tokens cannot go up forever, profits will be taken, and inflows from Solana are not unlimited; however, it’s certainly captured a huge amount of mindshare and momentum,” Keenan said.
