Aside from ICO, there is a new way to fuel cryptocurrency mania: launching Exchange Tokens. An increasing number of digital currency exchanges,especially China-related markets, like Binance, Huobi Pro, OKEx, have launched their own tokens, and see an explosive growth.

Even when bitcoin experiences a slump amid wider crypto drop, newly-launched exchange tokens are sold out in just few minutes.

Exchanges Race to Issue Proprietary Tokens

Huobi Pro, a subsidy of Huobi Global, officially released its Huobi global points—Huo Token(HT) on January 24. The token is distributed for free with the purchase of Huobi’s Point Card Packages.

According to Huobi Pro, the issuance of HT starts on January 24 with a capped supply of 500 million, of which 300 million will be given away to users over a course of 15 days ending on Feb. 7. The remaining 40 percent is for platform operation, team incentives and user rewards.

The incredible thing took place:On its first sale day, 31.66 million HTs were sold out in 2 minutes and 26 seconds.The second day set a a new record with 29.99 million HTs snapped in 1 minute and 40 seconds. The third day saw 28.56 million HTs snatched up in 32 seconds.

Crypto traders’ passion seems hard to be dampened because they see an enormous potential for HT token growth. Users can use HT to purchase VIP membership at a discount, treat it as cash deposit and hold HT to receive FREE air drop. Huobi emphasized that the token launch was not an ICO.

Two days later, OkCoin, another previously major bitcoin exchange in China, issued its own token based on the ethereum ERC-20 standard, called OKB. According to OKEx, 1 billion OKB tokens will be released, 50% of which will be distributed for free to OKEx users. Also, the launch of OKB does not imply an ICO .

In addition to Huobi Pro and OKEx, the other emerging Chinese digital currency exchange ZB.com has quietly released its own token ZB earlier this week ,too.

The proprietary token buying spree outperforms the Black Fri day sale to some degree.

Want to Replicate Binance’s Success?

In the wake of China’s clampdown on cryptocurrencies trading, Binance is among the first fleet of Chinese markets to move overseas. Then with its good user experience, various kinds of high-quality altcoins and sufficient market depth, Binance becomes the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world by trading volume in just a few months. The number of users has surged from 1 million to 6 million.

A meteoric rise in BNB, the proprietary token issued by Binance, provides proof to the explosive growth of the ambitious exchange. BNB token gained more than 8000% in 2017 and is currently trading for over $11, ranking 28^th on CoinMarketCap’s market tracker with the marketcap of  11billion.

In fact, BNB token has sparked controversies since its launch. According to a previous report from Sina.com, Binance limited BNB token’s use value by force in order to maintain the buy-back mechanism of the token. By artificially creating the concept and scarcity of BNB, Binance intended to stir speculation and media hype.

He Yi, the co-founder of Binance refuted such claims. She said BNB would allow users to enjoy a 50% discount on trading fees. The reason for an increase in the price of BNB is that it has a limited supply, 200 million in total, and never issue additional BNBs，so the more users there are ,the higher trading fee will reach, thus driving BNB value to rise.

What’s the Value of Exchange Tokens?

Diversified exchange tokens,actually, have similar application scenarios.

For users, you can use HT, OKB, ZB or BNB to pay trading fees, and enjoy a certain discount. In addition, users can also be given priority to experience new features of exchanges, and to participate in exclusive activities.For exchanges, issuing exchange tokens is considered as a good way to increase user engagement and bring in capitals.

As digital currency exchanges continue to expand their global business, such exchange tokens will assume the role of ‘fiat’,facilitating the circulation of value. Token holders can transfer value through these intermediaries without worrying about time difference, trading fees, or transaction confirmation times. And in a sense, token holders are also able to share profits of these exchanges.

In short, the value of exchange tokens depends on the platform’s earning power.And if an exchange wants to stand out from a large number of competitors, it needs to rely on its good user experience, high quality cryptocurrencies, excellent customer service and a strong user base.

This model has paid dividends.And with the help of its own tokens, these exchanges seek to take on established players such as Coinbase and Bitfinex. But the long-term success of such model still remains in doubt.