BNB Gains Ground as Maxwell Upgrade and Tokenized Stocks Fuel Optimism

BNB, the native token of the BNB Chain, is on the rise, lifted by recent technical upgrades and new investment narratives. Over the past 24 hours, BNB has added roughly 0.6%, benefiting from strong trading activity and growing excitement surrounding plans for tokenized equity offerings.

A significant catalyst has been the Maxwell hard fork, which went live late last month. The upgrade halved the network’s block times from about 1.5 seconds to 0.75 seconds, enabling transactions to finalize twice as quickly—a crucial advantage for handling spikes in user activity.

With approximately $6 billion in total value locked, per data from DeFiLlama, BNB Chain is promoting itself as a high-speed alternative for decentralized applications requiring substantial throughput.

Adding to the momentum, Kraken and Backed Finance recently revealed plans to launch tokenized equities on BNB Chain. This initiative will let users trade tokenized versions of popular stocks such as Apple and Tesla on a 24/7 basis. These assets, issued as BEP-20 tokens, will be accessible in 185 markets outside the United States.

Meanwhile, the broader crypto market is also showing resilience. The CoinDesk 20 index has climbed 2.7% in the past day, suggesting traders are largely unfazed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s newly announced tariffs set to take effect on August 1.

Despite the positive backdrop, BNB faced resistance near the $664.20 mark in early trading, according to technical analysis from CoinDesk Research. Some market participants are watching for signs of accumulation, where larger players may be discreetly increasing their positions. However, a modest pullback to around $661.75 late in the session indicates some traders are opting to secure recent gains.

The key question now is whether BNB can break through the $665-$667 range—a move that could signal sustained momentum or, conversely, invite renewed selling pressure.