BNB was born as a Binance loyalty token. Now, it’s being pitched as a corporate reserve asset, thanks to a $100 million play by former Coral Capital executives. Their soon-to-be-renamed Nasdaq firm, Build & Build Corporation, could legitimize BNB in ways Binance never could—or expose its deepest flaws. On June 23, Bloomberg reported that former Coral Capital Holdings executives Patrick Horsman, Joshua Kruger, and Johnathan Pasch are in “advanced talks” to raise $100 million through a Nasdaq-listed shell company they control. The capital would be used to acquire Binance Token (BNB) en masse, positioning the token as a treasury reserve asset of the renamed firm, Build & Build Corporation. Investor materials reviewed in the report describe the strategy as a first-of-its-kind bid to turn a publicly traded company into a long-term BNB holding vehicle—a move directly inspired by Strategy’s Bitcoin ( BTC ) playbook. The trio’s plan hinges on a critical distinction: BNB, while birthed by Binance, now operates independently as the native token of the BNB Smart Chain. Read more: BTC crash was no accident: Bitcoin’s price chart warned of potential weakness The BNB gamble: can a corporate treasury overcome Binance’s shadow? The Build & Build Corporation’s $100 million bet on BNB is a high-stakes experiment in rebranding. Unlike Bitcoin, which carries no corporate affiliation, BNB remains inextricably linked to Binance in the public consciousness, despite CZ’s insistence that it operates independently as the native asset of BNB Smart Chain. This perception has been a double-edged sword: while the token powers one of the most active blockchains in crypto, its price has underperformed relative to most tokens over the past year, weighed down by Binance’s legal settlements and lingering regulatory scrutiny. BNB’s struggles are quantifiable. Since Binance’s $4.3 billion plea deal with U.S. authorities in late 2023, the token has lagged behind major peers, gaining just 6.43% year-to-date compared to Cardano’s ( ADA ) 40.28% and Tron’s ( TRX ) 126.32% and over the same period, CoinMarketCap data shows. Much of that gap stems from investor skepticism about centralization. According to a 2017 whitepaper, BNB’s initial distribution allocated 80 million tokens (worth roughly $50 billion today) to Binance’s founding team, including CZ. Though the exchange has burned tokens periodically to reduce supply, critics argue BNB’s governance remains opaque compared to fully decentralized alternatives. Adding to BNB’s dismal performance is the shadow of recent enforcement actions against Binance and its co-founder Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty to federal charges in November 2023. Whether Build & Build can isolate BNB from these narratives and convince public markets to see it as an institutional-grade treasury asset remains an open and risky bet. Read more: Pompliano unveils ProCap Financial, eyes $1b BTC play via SPAC
