Cryptocurrency exchanges have some stiff competition but there are a few ways to stand out in this market. Things like user interface, coin listings, liquidity, and trading fees, all play a part in determining which exchange a user wants to join.
Luckily for us, the users, these exchanges are hungry for ways to provide the best kind of service and incentives in order to lure us their way.
Many have chosen the path of native tokens.
Binance is one of the first and certainly one of the most popular to offer a native token that rewards holders in more ways than one. Since then, even though it’s been a very short time since the rise of popularity for Binance, other exchanges have taken this idea and ran with it. They’ve come up with some creative ways to incentivise and reward those who use their platform and even more so for the holders of their token.
So many exchanges have adopted this incentive model that I think there’s enough material here for at least two videos. # So here is part one:
VIEW VIDEO HERE^^^
Binance (BNB)
We’re going to kick this one off with none other than Binance. Binance held an ICO and created an ERC20 token not too long ago. It really wasn’t long after that this exchange saw an incredible increase in users.
This Binance token is called BNB and holders of it can benefit with 50% off trading fees the first year of using Binance as long as they are storing their coins on the Binance exchange.
This percentage decreases over time and after 5 years, a discount is no longer applied.
Binance also uses 20% of its profits each quarter to buy back its tokens and burn them until the total supply has been halved. As long as this is done correctly, this token burning will effectively reduce the supple of tokens, making them more scarce and thus more valuable over time.
KuCoin (KCS)
Next up, KuCoin is an exchange based in Hong Kong which pays dividends to those who hold their coin called KCS.
The dividends you receive are proportional to the percentage of total KCS that you hold.
KuCoin distributes 50% of its trading fees to KCS holders and 40% of these fees are a reward for those who make successful referrals.
I think this one is pretty cool because the dividends aren’t paid in KCS coins, instead you’ll be paid in whatever coins the fees were paid in. This means you’ll be receiving different coins are rewards. This could be an easy way to diversify your portfolio without having to actually make the trades.
Also for every 1,000 KCS you hold, you’ll receive a 1% discount on trading fees.
Like Binance, KuCoin will take 10% if their profits and use this to buy back and burn their tokens in an effort to reduce the supply.
Huobi (HT)
This next one, Huobi and their coin ticker symbol is HT. This one is similar to Binance again with the discounted trading fees and also with a scheduled buy back program. One difference here is that instead of effectively destroying these coins, Huobi transfers them to a User Protection Fund. Which Huobi uses to reimburse users who have been victims of a security breach.
Holders of HT can also have a voice on which coins will be added to the exchange thanks to the HADAX. (Huobi Autonomous Digital Asset Exchange) The more HT you hold, the louder your voice is with this voting system.
The top two coins are then added to the exchange and those coins are then airdropped to HT users.
CryptoBridge (CBO)
Don’t worry, decentralized exchanges are on it as well. CryptoBridge has the coin, BCO, and this is the native token for the decentralized exchange which was built on the Bitshares platform. It’s also mineable.
They’re going to make to work a bit to get your rewards though. You can earn rewards by staking these coins. The longer you stake, the higher the percentage you’ll see as a reward.
You’ll max out at a 100% bonus after staking for one year.