The Binance Coin and NEM prices continued to surge against the US dollar on Wednesday, even as other cryptocurrencies posted a near-universal retreat. Bitcoin, Ethereum Lead Widespread Cryptocurrency RetreatIt was a dismal day for cryptocurrency traders. The Bitcoin price retraced another four percent to $8,812, while Ethereum dipped five percent to $667. Source: CoinMarketCapOn the whole, the cryptocurrency market cap index dropped by 3.3 percent, bringing its seven-day decline to $67 billion. However, two cryptocurrencies managed to defy this bearish backdrop and post strong advances against the dollar. NEM Price Rises on Coincheck PayoutThe first of these was NEM, which achieved a solid seven percent increase. At one point, the NEM price rose as high as $0.54 during intraday trading, although it has since ebbed to a present value of $0.45. XEM Price Chart | Source: TradingViewNEM now has a market cap of $4.3 billion, a mark that has allowed it to sneak back into the ninth position in the market cap rankings nearly two months after being expelled from the top 10 in the wake of the high-profile January hack of cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck. But just as the Coincheck hack correlated with NEM’s decline, it has also been a catalyst in its present rally. The exchange operator this week began paying out compensation to the approximately 260,000 users who lost NEM tokens (XEM) as a result of the theft, and that compensation — which was paid in fiat — was worth nearly double the current NEM price. Consequently, it appears that investors are using those funds to repurchase their missing NEM, and in some cases, using the extra funds to increase their holdings above what they were at the time of the hack. Binance Coin Leaps on News of Decentralized Exchange, Public BlockchainEven NEM’s climb, however, was eclipsed by that of Binance Coin (BNB), the eponymous utility token of one of the world’s highest-volume cryptocurrency exchanges. BNB made an astounding 20 percent rally to $9.66, raising its market cap to just under $1 billion and allowing it to climb to 25th in the rankings. BNB Price Chart | Source: TradingViewBNB’s rally is the direct result of Tuesday’s announcement that Binance is building a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange (DEX) built upon “Binance Chain” — a dedicated public blockchain. BNB, which is currently an ERC20 token, will be transferred to the new blockchain and serve as its native asset. It is not currently clear when Binance Chain and the DEX will launch, but the company says it will reveal more details in the near future. Featured image from Shutterstock