BINANCE: A DRIVER FOR BLOCKCHAIN AND CRYPTO-CURRENCY ADOPTION

1. Introduction
Binance is an exchange company formed in 2017. If one may ask, is Binance just an exchange or a progressive crypto exchange? My answer is that Binance is not just a crypto exchange company but an ‘engine’ that drives crypto-currency adoption. How? My readers may ask. My answers will first start with a simple analogy of what is adoption.

Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, (usually a child, from that person’s biological or legal parent or parents,) and in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from the biological parent or parents (Wikipedia,2018). In the sense of crypto-currency it is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another ( new idea or way or thing) and in so doing permanently transfers all rights and responsibility that belong to the old or normal way to the new way. Driving in the other hand is knowing how to operate the mechanisms which control the system (vehicle); it requires knowing how to apply the rules of the road (which ensures safe and efficient sharing with other users). An effective driver also has an intuitive understanding of the basics of system (vehicle ) handling and can drive responsibly (Jacob,2018). A driver may be a person, company, a system or device that knows the mechanism which control a system and the driver must formulate or know the rules and the basics of directing the system to its target. A device driver for instance is a system (computer program) that operates or controls a particular type of device (EMC,2010). In our case we are looking at crypto-adoption driver, a person or company that knows the mechanism which can be used to make greater number of people to transfer permanently the rights and responsibility of fiat money to blockchain currency (Crypto-currency).

A clear case of driving adoption can be easily seen in Football which have been in existence long ago, but FIFA devices a way to entice all nation to participate and develop football infrastructure in there countries by moving Football tournament hosting around different regions and other things they did to make the sports to be popular (adopted) all over the regions of the world.

Similarly, crypto-currency have been there before Binance started, crypto-exchanges have been there before the advent of Binance but what Binance did and what they did not do helped in replicating adoption across all the regions of the globe. The only challenge here is whether these position can be substantiated?

2. The Authors experience
My name is Bartholomew Eke (PhD), a Software Engineer and Senior Lecturer at the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, Africa. I developed interest on cryptocurrency in 2010 after reading Nakamoto published paper Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer electronic cash system (Satoshi,2008) which I saw as a research on cryptography protection of online payments. I didn’t well understood it until on Febuary 2014 on hearing that Mt. Gox the largest Bitcoin exchange tend, had gone bankcrupt and had made away with depositors ‘Coins’. The word coins attracted my interest, I wondererd why they should be keeping the Coins instead of the notes, but I latter learnt it was not Coins but Bitcoins. Before that time Satoshis’s Bitcoin was simply viewed by me as a research exercise aimed at improving crryptography which I had many programs on. The research on tracking of Mt. Gox Bitcoin in the publication of Sarah et. al (2016) increased my interest in Crypto-currency and exchanges research. The research is still ungoing though I have published some of my findings but one of my crushial discovery is that Binance is not just a cryptocurrency exchange but a driver of cryptocurrency and blockchain adoption. I am one of the few people trading in crypto exchanges as part of my research project so it often does not matter whether I gained a trade or lost provided I made my findings. I have used more than 15 exchanges only on experimental bases some of which include Coinbase, Blockchain, Kraken, Bitrrex, Tradesatoshi, Binance, Kucoin, Bit-Z, Cryptopia, Luno, Abucoin and Cryptagio just to mention a few. My criteria of registering include Low volume, High Volume, Low fee, High Fee, difficulty of registration, exchange incentive, exchange policy, cardinal goal of exchange, Fiat or non-fiat, age of exchange and other criteria which I will still publish in my future paper. I have lost and gained crypto in the process of the research but I saw some things that Binance does differently which may or may not have contributed to surge in users interest.
3. Binance Key Drivers
In discussing the story of a young exchange called Binance there are some findings worth mentioning and they include:
i) Segregation (Discrimination) : In all the money transfer companies and exchanges I have studied before the advent of Binance there is serious segregation among its customers. In some exchanges this differentiation is very scaring but in Binance it is very minimal, unnoticeable and almost non existent. I will use three experiences to explain, in Coinbase my country (Nigeria) can not trade but they can deposit and withdraw crypto, so why allow them to register only to segregate. Most exchanges, majority of users do not withraw more than 1BTC per day but exchanges group them into three level of users which have different withdrawal limits ( which is very OK for some reasons) but many exchanges go further to place trade restrictions based on this segregations. For instance Cryptopia do not allow you to trade USDT or its equivalent if you are not in certain levels. Bit-z will not allow you to participate in some trading competition or even get airdrops if you are not in some category of user. There are more instances but you will not experience any difference as a user until you want to withdraw above certain limits in Binance. Binance operates little or no discrimination allowing ‘Private Crypto’ users to remain in level 1 and operate freely provided they withraw smaller amounts. There are many world micro scale and unbanked users who can not afford to get any valid government ID for level 3 registration- Binance is were they fill welcomed. I spent some months as level 1 client and now am in level 2 but my withrawal is hardly upto one BTC a day so I feel no difference but that’s not true with many exchanges.
ii) Incentives: The unprecidented incentives that Binance offer can make some body with zero dollar to be a marchant with Binance. In November 2017, I told my research students who do not have funds to complete their research work, to register in Binance and generate money to finish their research; they did and are about to graduate. Binance empowered them, they simply registered, got some Airdrops from some new crypto companies, sold and traded with the money and where given trading bonuses and they sold the coins and paid for there research costs via Binance. Their trading incentive vary so much that all kinds of traders benefit, to be more concrete Ontology had a condition of trading 0.5BTC over a week. Using $100 a trader can easily trade five times a day which is $1000 buy-sell volume, in five days that is $5000 volume above 0.5BTC at that time and they gave 1000 ONT which was worth (at some time) $10000, what else is incentive or empowerment. No one can deny these facts. Some new exchanges have copied these model which is great for cryptocurrency adoption. All young school leavers in my area are into Airdrop due to this model introduced by Binance.
iii) Low trading Fee : Binance is a cryptocurrency which is accepted for transaction in my local domain thanks to the exchange, for the past six months IT training centers in my locality accept and use Binance as payment for IT training. Trading fee is half when the coin is used to pay for fees but due to its relative stability Binance have found usage in other payments. Beginners can easily learn trading at reduced cost due to low fees. Majority of crypto traders in Binance are startup traders who are learning fast due to trading incentives.
iv) High Volume: One of the Support team in Abucoin said that people go to Binance because of there high trading volumes, many people still have the same opinion. But as an academics I know that at a time Binance traded less than 1BTC during their starting stage either as one second or one minute trade volume, they did not start the first second of opening trade with large volumes. BTC only have less than 40% of all Crypto (Coinmarketcap,2018) and Binance introduce good altcoins which was followed by volumes. I was told when Binance started by a forum friend that an exchange that does not offer fiat currency will not attract traders but I differed, insisting that a trader will always prefer to make money in ‘Aghanistan and spend it in Paris’. If a trader can ingage in quality trade in an exchange he will only go to the next exchange for cash-out. Cashing out is not always a problem once there is another exchange that is ready to exchange even a single crypto like Bitcoin or even TUSD or USDT.
v) Honesty: Binance is an honest exchange, they promise they will distribute prices for trade in a given time you will get it before the time or right at the time they promised. Some exchanges do not add crypto handling delays when they make promise only to discover that a transfer may take 30 seconds today and 3 days the next hour. Binance will tell you two weeks after trading competition the coins will be distributed, they do not usually mean it. What they actually said is that “in two days time after context we will send the winners there coins and the coins can take at most 10 days to reach”. In most cases the coins reach in seconds instead of the added days they promised. Cryptocurrency is scary and new users are afraid of dealing with faceless customer service personnels, emails and text messages. What they always want is “your coin is confirming 1/30 confirmations”; they can go to sleep believing that in 5days the coin will be their own. Binance delivers on promises. When they found abnormality that will make customers loss they will raise alarm. For instance during Bytecoin surden price spike in early May 2018 they warned customers to trade with cursion explaining that coin deposit problem may have caused price abnormality-honesty. They constantly remind you to trade with their Binance coin for low fee even when they know that your failure to do that results to higher fees and more gain to the company but they prefer to honestly warn customers.
v) Selection of Promising Alt Coins:
I am a lecturer in Africa and have never worked with any crypto company but I have traded more than 15 coins in Binance (the evidence is the piece of coin left) but the coins are promising. The coin that is usually at the bottom of the Binance volume is Via Coin which is still a good coin (from my accessment). Most of the coins listed in the exchange easily move up creating great choice and selection space for traders. When crypto exchange grow, users grow and trading space need to grow, Binance is master in that strategy. If a company produces a fake coin or even a ‘good coin’ with bad road map they will not even approach Binance for listing for two reasons- fear of not spending their money since they do not have plans to make more money from long term plan, fear that there listing request will be rejected. The choice of coins cut across prices and different rating in Coinmarketcap; Binance does not wait for a coin to be in the first 100 before listing them rather if they believe the coin is promising they select the coin.
vi) Recognition of developer community
Any IT company today that do not take care of its developers or technical teams well will loose them to other cryptocurrency companies and there are many of them coming up. Exchanges seem to believe that there job is to deal on other peoples products but Binance has shown that the best we to understand the crypto world is by been one with it. Binance is not just an exchange, it is a cryptocurrency, a blockchain technology and security and software development organization. This is correct but that can not be said of many exchanges except those copying Binance model. Surprisingly those exchanges copying Binance are also getting visible result.
vii) Efficiency and Speed of Site and Trading App.
There are things that the Western countries take for granted- power availability and very high speed internet connectivity. Readers of this story from advanced nations should jump to the next point. But the rest of the world have little power which is not even available always and internet cost are high and speed are extremely low. Even when the provider have technology to provide high speed users prefer to have their data last for one full month than to see it finished due to high speed usage. Some times provider intentionally slow down speed to avoid customers outcry of quick finishing data. This calls for exchanges to carry majority of users along in developing there trading platforms. The faster the better and Binance is acting and continues to work on this.
viii) Security
This is closely related to technology since internally trading apps needed to be upgraded to remain ahead of hackers, crakers and phishing organisations. Early in the year 2018 Binance had a phishing attack, we could easily imagine the state of the cryptocurrency exchange now is they had suceeded. But the phishers could not still coins even when they have broken in, this increased users confidence in the exchange and draw more new clients. The new features added to the exchange have even made email phishing extremely difficult to phishers. There are other security features added which users can sence but are hidden to public discussion.
ix) Rich
Binance is a rich company, rich in their attitude to the world community, rich in income generation, rich in the way they give to start up companies even when they are also start up themselves, rich in their logo and rich in communicating with customers. Rich in innovative ideas. Binance is rich. Poverty repels, so Binance will keep attracting every body to itself.
x) Binance is blessed with an experienced and humble CEO
When a company has an experienced leader the multiplier effect is seeing on the rest of the staff. Innovative staff will have little headache in getting their ideas approved. An arrogant leader is a liability to a company and make the company to keep regreting its actions. The leader is planning to go to Malta but he is still insisting that it is just a branch of Binance making the current host the consider its stands on tough regulation.

4. Binance Road Pot Holes
A driver must be careful about pot holes else his good car may tumble. Binance no dought now is really a cryptocurrency innovation adoption driver and must watch out for the following.
i) Rise of Communities around cryptos
Communities grow a company and communities make companies to go down. If all traders pull out from Binance the company will be history. When Bitcoin started, there was one cryptocurrency community, one group of Bitcoin developers, one Bitcoin enthusiast, but today that is far from the reality. We now have many Bitcoin communities (BTC, BCH, BTCP, BTG etc) and many altcoin communities. Passion have started to roll in these communities and support is continously solicited and soon tougher competitions will ensure the coin to list need to be voted for and a new way for paying for coin listing should be deviced using Binance Coin to vote.
ii) Ico Support
Binance supports ICOs but for more than three months there LaunchPad on their website have being showing Bread and Gifto, this is very bad. When not launching a coin the LaunchPad need to be empty and when new coin are not coming to the Binance LaunchPad the LaunchPad should go to new coins. Binance community can vote to select the next coin that will go into the LaunchPad. If it required payment then they can use their binance coin to vote and get rewarded by the new coin in a form of shared bounty or airdrop.
iii) Strong Community
We have discussed the rise of communities, binance is lacking on strong community (a group that have strong passion for Binance as an Exchange, a Cryptocurrency and as a Technology). A community driven by volunteers and not by Binance employee, a community that will work for the passion and not for duty. I see three Binance and the group must be very passionate about the three. This may not be group of Binance Traders – no they are too busy and have no coin or exchange friend. Binance may be working towards this direction in the Binance Angels project but wisdom must be used to get the correct arrow head of the community and to actually let go of the person to freely handle the community. If the staff want to lord it on the community followership will be for duty not for the passion.
iv) Binance Bounties
Binance have so many trading bounties won after the competitions. This is good but part of this bounties need to be used to bring in more new users who will register and a buy Binance and smaller amount for new members without any conditions. The trade competitions the way most of them are ends up in the hands of already suceessful members who can trade once a day and win the competition due to there financial musle. These group of big traders are highly desirable and will continue to remain in the first to third places. But future members need to be attracted with the little tokens falling out from every bounty.
v) Need for Binance_Inc Exchange
Binance is so big and will get bigger. Binance need to have another cryptocurrency exchange, but instead of just an exchange Binance should have an incubator exchange. ‘Division Two exchange’ this exchange will be low volume and should serve as a source for listing in the main exchange. If a coin is performing with high volume it can be moved to the main exchange. In a crypto in the main exchange is not performing in they can be moved back to the incubator exchange. In this way Binance will remain the technology and develop in other areas.

5. Binance as an Innovative Crypto-currency Adoption Driver
It has been said that adoption is the original dependent variable in innovation research and the desirable property of innovative systems which change agents seek to enhance. “Innovation” on the other hand is any change in structure, design, products, or processes in which there is a definable new element introduced into the system; the process is essentially the same for all technologies including blockchain technologies. In innovative space the characteristics of people or organizations are associated with higher levels of adoption and the company that makes the adoption to happen faster is very innovative. The voiced or unvoiced assumption underlying the examination of correlates of innovativeness is causal: If we manipulate the characteristics of organizations or individuals so that they more closely resemble those of the highly innovative, we will make the organizations or individuals themselves more innovative (Eveland, 1979)

Conclusion
It is very easy to conclude this article by saying that since Binance was able to make more people to adopt cryptocurrency in a fast manner that they are not only drivers of cryptocurrency adoption but they are Innovative. Ask of an innovative cryptocurrency exchange the response should be Binance, when they move others copy so without the statistics of their trade volumes one can easily see that they are truely the leaders that the crypto exchange space have today.

References
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EMC Education Services (2010). Information Storage and Management: Storing,
Managing, and Protecting Digital Information. John Wiley & Sons

Nakamoto S. (2009) Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, Retrieved 30
May, 2018.

Sarah M., Marjori P., Grant J., Kirill L., Damon M., Geoffrey M. V., and Stefan
S.,(2016) A Fistful of Bitcoins: Characterizing Payments among Men with No
Names, Communications of the ACM, 59(4), 86-93,USA.

Jacob M. Appel (2018); “Must Physicians Report Impaired Driving? Rethinking a
Duty on a Collision Course with Itself”; Journal of Clinical Ethics (volume 20,
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