Only those who dare to burn money have the chance to print new money.

This afternoon, OKX dropped a heavyweight message in the market - a massive one-time destruction of 65.25 million OKB tokens, with a market value of hundreds of millions of dollars at current prices. After the announcement, OKB's price quickly surged, rising over 100% in a short time and becoming the focus in a relatively sluggish market environment. Such volatility evoked a sense of familiarity for many investors.

The market's associations quickly returned to four years ago - the sensational "platform token destruction war" of 2021. At that time, exchanges were using real money to repurchase and destroy their platform tokens, not only reducing market circulation and creating scarcity but also signaling profitability and business growth to the outside world. It was an incredibly fierce arms race without gunpowder: each destruction announcement drove token prices up and reshuffled market capitalization rankings.

Now, when OKB launches another massive destruction move, the market's emotions and memories are simultaneously ignited. The difference is that the industry environment in 2025 is far different from back then - global regulations are stricter, and competition models and ecosystem layouts among exchanges have significantly changed.

However, this does not prevent us from asking the same question - is it still possible to see a tenfold market performance in today's platform token track like in 2021?

Reviewing the Platform Token Destruction War of 2021

Let's rewind the timeline to four years ago.

From the end of 2020 to early 2021, the crypto market welcomed an epic bull market. After Bitcoin broke through the $20,000 mark and continued climbing, Ethereum returned to the thousand-dollar range, driving a comprehensive outbreak in the Altcoin sector. Large speculative funds first rushed into low-priced, highly volatile Altcoins, pushing up short-term gains and quickly igniting market sentiment.

Subsequently, as Altcoin profit-taking funds were realized and reflowed, exchanges' trading volumes and profits were significantly boosted.

At this point, platform tokens had conditions for "subsequent rise": the high profits from the bull market gave exchanges the ability to massively repurchase and destroy tokens, reducing circulation and creating scarcity; the need for market value management also made exchanges happy to demonstrate strength through destruction.

Top platforms keenly captured this opportunity, using destruction as a tool for brand competition and investor confidence gaming.

A "muscle-showing destruction show" catalyzed by the Altcoin boom and backed by exchange profits thus began, with platform tokens completing a position transformation from "catching up" to "leading" in the market.

In that destruction war, no one wanted to be a silent bystander.

The frequency, scale, and styles of major exchanges' actions were almost as exciting as the price curves. To occupy a higher position on the market cap list, they showed their strength to the market in different ways - some made shocking one-time attacks, some chose stable rhythms to build trust, some directly confronted in the secondary market, and some relied on high-frequency presence.

Eventually, four camps with distinct styles emerged on the battlefield, each representing a different approach: BNB, HT, OKB, and FTT. They not only shaped the platform token landscape of 2021 but also provided a template for later participants to imitate or even improve.

In that smoke-filled destruction war, BNB was the first cannon to fire.

In April 2021, Binance burned 1,099,888 BNB tokens, worth $595 million at the time, directly breaking the crypto history's single destruction record. This not only dramatically reduced circulating supply but also demonstrated "profit realization speed". Immediately after, CZ threw out an even more aggressive signal - completing the 100 million token destruction goal ahead of time and introducing an automatic destruction mechanism, making this action sustainable and predictable. Such boldness and steady rhythm helped BNB rise from $37 to $690 during that year's bull market, breaking into the global top three by market cap.

Similar to BNB, HT's rise was not the first wave but followed a "Altcoins rise first - platform tokens rise later" rhythm. In January-February 2021, funds primarily flowed to hot Altcoins. When these funds reflowed to exchange profits and platform tokens, HT experienced a concentrated outbreak. From around $4 in early January to nearly $39 in May, it rose almost tenfold.

OKB chose a more direct route. It eliminated the intermediate repurchase link, directly buying and destroying in the secondary market. This approach was like shooting bullets directly into the price curve, reducing speculative pre-positioning space while creating significant market impact at the announcement moment. In 2021, OKB destroyed nearly 30 million tokens, with prices jumping from single digits to $40, firmly holding the second-tier position.

As a newcomer, FTT clearly didn't want to lag in rhythm. FTX chose high-frequency strikes - weekly repurchases and destructions, incorporating all income from trading fees, leveraged token redemption fees, and futures funding fees into its ammunition. This rhythm kept it at the center of discussions during the 2021 bull market, with prices peaking at $85, second only to BNB and OKB. However, this model was highly dependent on trading volume, and its firepower would dry up once the market reversed. As expected, with the exchange's collapse in 2022, FTT's story abruptly ended, falling from stardom to ruins.

The destruction war's firepower was concentrated in the first four months of 2021.

Between January and April, platform tokens like BNB, OKB, HT, and FTT almost regularly released record-breaking repurchase and destruction data, often worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Combined with the bull market's high trading volumes, token prices were continuously pushed higher, driving market sentiment to its peak.

From July to September, the destruction rhythm continued but with reduced scale, more about maintaining expectations, and token price reactions became moderate, entering a cooling period. By the fourth quarter, as BTC and ETH entered adjustment phases and exchange trading volumes significantly dropped, destruction scale and frequency declined, and news effects could no longer drive platform tokens' strong performance, with enthusiasm quickly cooling down.

Ultimately, this nearly year-long destruction arms race not only left steep peaks and valleys on price curves but also reshaped the platform token landscape. BNB, with its firepower and rhythm advantages, firmly sat at the absolute top; OKB, with stable mechanisms and decisive execution, solidly occupied the second-tier position; while FTT, though momentarily prominent in the bull market, collapsed in 2022 due to over-reliance on trading volume and external environment, becoming a cautionary tale in platform token history.

The war's aftermath continues today, providing a clear footnote for later participants - in the platform token world, being able to burn is important, but surviving is even more crucial.

Platform Tokens Surging in 2025

Platform token trends are often not linear climbs but "step-like" jumps: seemingly calm usually, but once key events are triggered (massive destruction, major product launches, license acquisitions, ecosystem explosions), prices can steeply surge in a short time, then establish new price centers on the new level.

In past cycles, these "super surge-type" platform tokens almost always followed a common script:

First, pave the way - prepare in advance in ecology, products, compliance, etc.; then ignite - trigger the market through a massive action, like BNB's Alpha launch, OKB's massive destruction, BGB's dual ecosystem loop; and then expand - continuously release new benefits at new price highs to maintain momentum and capital inflow.

In 2025, we can see BNB, OKB, and BGB are all interpreting this logic in their own ways.