Counterparty is a platform for user-created assets on Bitcoin. It’s a protocol, set of specifications, and an API. Taken together, it allows users to create and trade assets on top of Bitcoin’s blockchain. In this way, Counterparty is similar to platforms like Waves or Ethereum. Of course, the difference is Counterparty integrates directly with Bitcoin. Therefore, it comes will all the security and reliability (and issues) that are part of the Bitcoin blockchain. This is a fairly old project. In fact, it pre-dates Ethereum with its launch in 2014. It was the original asset creation mechanism. As you’re probably aware, Counterparty has faded from prominence over the years. This is largely due to the rise of the ERC-20 token standard on Ethereum. While we’ve become used to calling blockchain assets, tokens, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. An asset can represent anything that has value or is rare. As a result, Counterparty steers clear of the word “token” in their marketing and documentation. They’re much more interested in digital assets of all kinds, not just currencies, securities, and utility tokens. Digital assets can be a digital marker of a physical object, an easy way to manage shares in your company, or reputation karma for a website. These are all types of assets you could create on Counterparty (or Ethereum or Waves, for that matter). Counterparty creates the set of rules, requirements, integrations, etc that are necessary for assets on the Bitcoin blockchain. It’s the infrastructure behind user-created assets in much the same way that the ERC-20 protocol sets up guidelines and standards for asset creation on Ethereum. One useful function of digital assets is as a marker of ownership or voting rights. Imagine a scenario where you issued a digital asset to each of your company’s board members in proportion to the amount of voting power held. Or if you gave your stockholders a digital asset as a marker of the amount of stock they owned. If you issued your stock asset, you could then use Counterparty’s distribution function to pay out dividends in BTC based on the amount of digital stock asset each person owned. Counterparty addresses many of the same issues as Ethereum or Waves, but on the Bitcoin blockchain. While that does come with some advantages, ultimately it is not as strong a platform for development as its competitors. It’s best suited for applications that need to interface with Bitcoin or assets that have a specific connection to the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Binance Coin is the cryptocurrency of the Binance platform. It is a trading platform exclusively for cryptocurrencies. The name 'Binance' is a combination of binary and finance. Thus, the startup name shows that only cryptocurrencies can be traded against each other. It is not possible to trade crypto currencies against Fiat. The platform achieved an enormous success within a very short time and is focused on worldwide market with Malta headquarters. The cryptocurrency currently has a daily trading volume of 1.5 billion - 2 billion US dollars and is still increasing. In total, there will only be 200 million BNBs. Binance uses the ERC20 token standard from Ethereum and has distributed it as follow: 50% sold on ICO, 40% to the team and 10% to Angel investors. The coin can be used to pay fees on Binance. These include trading fees, transaction fees, listing fees and others. Binance gives you a huge discount when fees are paid in BNB. The schedule of BNB fees discount is as follow: In the first year, 50% discount on all fees, second year 25% discount, third year 12.5% discount, fourth year 6.75 % discount, and from the fifth year onwards there is no discount. This structure is used to incentivize users to buy BNB and do trades within Binance. Binance announced in a buyback plan that it would buy back up to 100 million BNB in Q1 2018. The coins are then burned. This means that they are devaluated to increase the value of the remaining coins. This benefits investors. In the future, the cryptocurrency will remain an asset on the trading platform and will be used as gas. Other tokens that are issued by exchanges include Bibox Token, OKB, Huobi Token, and more.