How to Succeed on BNB Chain: A Guide for Web3 Startups

Genius Terminal is hosting a trading competition offering $100,000 in BNB rewards as part of BNB Trenching Szn. The contest ranks participants by realized profit and loss (PnL) over an extended timeframe, rather than trading volume. This follows several other competitions in the series: - Binance Wallet: 200 BNB prize pool, ranked by realized PnL - Bitget: 150,000 USDT distributed among 1,200 traders based on volume - gmgn.ai: 100 BNB for S10 BSC contest, ranked by balance management - Aveai Global: 100,000 USDT with multiple qualification paths The competitions emphasize actual trading performance over simple volume metrics. [Full details](https://x.com/GeniusTerminal/status/2013985023385596294)

At the World Economic Forum, Binance founder CZ argued that **programmable, permissionless money** is essential infrastructure for three emerging technologies: - **Tokenization** of real-world assets - **Digital payments** at scale - **AI agents** executing economic transactions His core thesis: as software begins making autonomous financial decisions, traditional banking rails are inadequate. The solution requires onchain infrastructure that enables self-executing, tamper-proof agreements. **Why this matters:** Smart contracts reduce counterparty risk, accelerate settlement, and lower costs through automation. When combined with cross-chain infrastructure, they create a foundation for assets to exist in unified formats—enabling unprecedented market efficiency. The shift represents a fundamental replatforming of financial systems, moving from siloed bank ledgers to shared, verifiable blockchain infrastructure.

BNB Chain has released its **2026 Tech Roadmap**, outlining the network's technical development plans for the coming year. The roadmap details upcoming improvements and features for the blockchain ecosystem, which includes both Layer-1 and Layer-2 scaling solutions. - Full details available on the official blog - Follows previous roadmap releases from 2024 - Presented in an interactive speed-reading format Read the complete roadmap: [BNB Chain 2026 Tech Roadmap](https://www.bnbchain.org/en/blog/tech-roadmap-2026)

BNB Chain has published its weekly ecosystem report covering developments from January 8-14, 2026. The report provides an overview of recent milestones and activities across the BNB Chain ecosystem, which includes both Layer-1 and Layer-2 scaling solutions. **Key Points:** - Weekly snapshot of ecosystem progress and achievements - Covers the period of January 8-14, 2026 - Part of BNB Chain's regular community updates The full report is available on the [BNB Chain blog](https://www.bnbchain.org/en/blog/bnb-chain-weekly-ecosystem-report-jan-8-14). This follows previous weekly updates, including the January 1-7 report, as BNB Chain continues its practice of transparent ecosystem reporting.

**BNB Chain Weekly Performance Overview** BNB Chain reported strong network activity for the week: - **4.1M+ average daily active users** maintaining consistent engagement - **141M+ transactions** processed across the network - **$11B+ total value locked (TVL)** in DeFi protocols - **$54B+ trading volume** across decentralized exchanges **Key Developments** - BNB Trenching Season initiatives underway - USD1 Trading Competition launched - 34th BNB token burn completed The metrics demonstrate sustained network utilization and liquidity depth across BNB Chain's ecosystem.