I am trying to decipher what the future holds for eth, asides its smart contract purposes which of course bnb can offer
BNB doesn't have smart contracts though, not really. I don't think it can compete with ETH in this space. Unless this is just using something like Cosmos. It's not like BNB has years of development of its own smart contract platform. It can and is competing with ETH on token issuance, but I don't agree that it is competing directly in smart contracts. At least not yet.
BNB still a long way to go ,yeah they are going fast but just because of Binance exchange and not because they are really competitive
And BNB is too young to compete for the second top ranked currency ,yeah this coin has future but not this year and not the next for sure.