Binance once again "hit by the bullet" of the listing fee drama, Yi He affirms that the exchange is

The scandal over the new token listing fee has pushed Binance into the "eye of the storm" of criticism, raising questions about the transparency of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange.

The crypto community has just witnessed a big battle on X (old Twitter), this time the drama revolves around the issue of token listing fees on Binance. The back and forth between the "big guys" and the accusations have exposed many dark corners not only of Binance but also of Coinbase, causing users to stir up, raising many questions about the future of Binance in particular and the CEX exchange in general.

Opening the drama, CEO Moonrock Capital Simon "ignited the fire"

It all started with a tweet from CEO Moonrock Capital Simon, when he revealed that he had just discussed with a tier 1 project that had raised more than a hundred million USD. After more than a year of waiting for Binance's assessment, the project finally received a listing proposal. However, what surprised and upset Simon was that Binance required up to 15% of the project's total token supply to list. He was upset:

"Imagine, the project has to pay from 50 to 100 million USD just to be listed on CEX. This number is not only 'exorbitant' for projects, but also the main reason for the token price to fall."

Simon's accusation was like a "cold shower" on Binance. 15% of the total token supply is a huge number, especially for large projects with high capitalization. Binance, which has always been considered an open exchange for potential projects, suddenly became a "bloodsucker".

Coinbase CEOs Andre Cronje and Justin Sun speak up, escalating the drama

Taking advantage of the "stormy" post above, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong quickly jumped in to retweet the above post, supporting Simon's opinion and cleverly "attracting customers" for Coinbase with a meaningful statement:

"Listing on Coinbase is free. Send us a listing request, maybe we can help you. And of course, DEX exchanges are also a great option (which we always support in our products)."

Brian's tweet both "taunted" Binance and disguised PR for Coinbase, making many anti-Binance users happy. However, the drama did not stop there. Andre Cronje, the "father" of Sonic (former Fantom), suddenly "changed the direction" with a post exposing Coinbase "extortion" right under Brian's post:

"Binance does not charge us any fees. Coinbase keeps asking for 300 million USD, 50 million USD, 30 million USD, and most recently 60 million USD. This is completely false."

This accusation not only made Coinbase "embarrassed", but also pushed the drama to a climax, especially after Justin Sun, founder of TRON, spoke up to defend Binance. Sun affirmed that Binance did not charge him a single cent, while Coinbase asked for a "bribe" of 500 million TRX (equivalent to 80 million USD) and a deposit of 250 million USD in Bitcoin on Coinbase Custody with the aim of boosting the token's performance.

Binance co-founder Yi He comes out to put out the "drama"

In the midst of the drama storm, Yi He, co-founder of Binance, has officially spoken out. She affirmed that Binance does not charge such "exorbitant" fees and all information about token allocation of projects is transparent. She emphasized:

"Projects cannot be listed on Binance only if they do not pass the screening process, regardless of how much money or how many tokens. Binance always publicly discloses the percentage of token allocation of projects, everyone can check for themselves to confirm the rumor about the 20% rate."

Yi He also clarified about airdrops on Binance Launchpool:

"Binance's airdrops on launchpool and other listings are very transparent, but do not be mistaken that providing tokens to Binance Launchpool means the project will be listed on Binance. If you are willing to use 20% of the total token supply for airdrops and want to cooperate with Binance, please contact us via Binance Web3 Wallet."

Not only "putting out the fire", Yi He also posted to "tease" Simon's FUD and praised Andre Cronje for daring to speak the truth:

"FUD will never go away, but it makes us stronger. ... People like Andre Cronje, who dare to speak the truth amidst all the rumors, truly deserve the respect of the community."

Immediately after Yi He's post, Simon continued to "expose" Binance and questioned whether what Yi He said was true or not:

"So you mean those things are completely fabricated and Binance has never asked a project for 15% or more tokens? In the end, it doesn't matter what you call those fees, as long as you get it from the founders."

However, Yi He has not yet responded to Simon's tweet.

Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao commented right under Justin Sun's post, calling on industry giants to stop attacking each other. However, CZ still left a "hidden" message, claiming that Bitcoin did not pay any fees to be listed, calling on developers to focus on building their projects well instead of wasting effort to put tokens on the exchange.

The crypto community is "uproaring", continuously criticizing Binance on Twitter

The crypto community is also divided into many factions, some support Binance, others criticize this exchange. Many people think that Binance is manipulating the market, "pumping and dumping" tokens and affecting the interests of investors.

The account @VietnamPenguin believes that most of the new tokens in the launchpool belong to BNB holders and the exchange can easily control this part by setting a maximum limit for each user per hour. However, for Scroll's SCR token, this limit is so high that despite the 5.5% allocation, the profit for regular users is very little.

@VietnamPenguin continued to condemn the recent SCR token listing on Binance:

For SCR, the exchange even set up a pre-market with unreasonable rules, where only 'whales' from the launchpool could sell the unlimited number of allocated tokens. Since then, the token has dropped by 50%. What are you talking about? Users are not naive.

@Phewmaster also "exposed" that Justin Sun has close ties to Binance

"The insider trading between Justin Sun and Binance seems to still exist. Binance listed the memecoin NEIRO with zero trading volume and he knew about it a day in advance."

However, in an interview with CoinDesk, Justin Sun once asserted that the memecoin on his exchange HTX is "much better". According to Sun, although Binance has a strict listing process, the profit for investors when buying coins right after listing is quite "meager". In contrast, HTX focuses on memecoins with high profit potential, especially without charging listing fees. This shows that the relationship between the two parties is not as close as rumored above.

Binance's listing fee drama once again exposed the dark corners of the crypto market, sparking heated debates about the role of CEX exchanges. Recently, the layer-2 Scroll listing on Binance with a series of fraud evidences also caused a wave of fierce opposition. The community believes that this goes against the spirit of decentralization that Scroll pursues, and at the same time raises questions about the project's true motives when "joining hands" with Binance.

This is also not the first time that Binance's "powerful lady" has spoken out about the scandals surrounding the exchange. Previously, in February 2024, after listing Ronin Network's RONIN coin, Binance encountered a wave of discussion about the coin's continuous price decline, along with suspicions of insider trading when someone knew in advance of the listing time, forcing Ms. Yi He to come forward to explain.