Binance is facing social media fire after a post by one of its founders sparked a debate over CEX listing fees.
Coinbase unexpectedly announced plans to list BNB yesterday, less than 24 hours after the base builder publicly criticized Binance’s alleged X listing policy, sparking a heated debate in the crypto community. Although BNB is no longer Binance’s official platform token, BNB (originally Binance Coin) was developed by the exchange and remains a key asset in its ecosystem.
The drama began on Tuesday, October 14th, when CJ Hetherington, co-founder and CEO of base prediction market Limitless, addressed Binance’s listing conditions in an X-Post. According to the post, Binance, the world’s largest centralized exchange (CEX) by trading volume, required approximately 8% of his project’s token supply (split between allocations for airdrops, liquidity, and other marketing activities) for listing on Binance’s Alpha platform, as well as a $2 million deposit with BNB for a spot listing.
threat of legal action
The social media revelation (which Limitless’ CEO later clarified was not under a non-disclosure agreement) led to a flurry of copy-and-paste posts and screenshots across Company X, and it didn’t take long for Binance’s official account to respond. In a post by X that was later deleted following community backlash, but before the screenshot was posted, the exchange’s customer support account said it “does not charge listing fees” and that CEX “does not profit from the listing process.”
Binance’s official support post claimed that the token allocation for the listing will ultimately be distributed to Binance users through airdrops and marketing campaigns, and that the refundable deposit exists only as a safeguard against short-term exploitation.
However, XPost also published contradictory statements, including one that said the listing transaction Hetherington posted was proposed by Binance and then accused Hetherington of “illegal and unauthorized disclosure of confidential communications with Binance.” XPost also threatened legal action against the Limitless CEO.
backfire on the community
The swift denial, with legal threats from CEX, sparked a wave of testimonies and counterclaims across the crypto community, including some of the biggest names in the industry.
Mike Dudas, founder of 6th Man Ventures and co-founder of The Block, claimed on X that he encountered “Binance listing an endless list of proposals of exactly the same nature as CJ over the last month.”
O Media founder Jeffy Yu also opined, stating that Binance asked for $1 million in cash to list the token. He also pointed out that Bybit asked for $250,000 in addition to a significant amount of tokens, so the team chose Kraken, which asked for “$100,000 to $200,000 in addition to the token supply.”
But some, like now-famous trader James Wynn, call the series of accusations a “coordinated FUD attack” aimed at Binance and its founder Zhao Changpeng (better known in the industry as CZ).
Cecilia Hsueh, Chief Strategy Officer at Faroese Exchange MEXC, provided insight into the company’s listing practices. In the X post, she acknowledged that MEXC charges a publication fee, but stressed that the amount is relatively small, “probably the lowest among the top CEXs” and is primarily used to help accelerate project launches, without providing a figure.
Decentralized rivals quickly seized the opportunity. HyperLiquid, the largest decentralized perpetual exchange, has recently clashed with Binance-linked DEX Aster over superior trading volume, but without directly mentioning CEX, it highlighted its unauthorized listing and highlighted its “free listing fee” model in contrast to Binance.
CZ intervenes
It didn’t take long for CZ to weigh in on the controversy, and his participation likely only added fuel to the fire.
In the X post, the Binance founder called Hetherington a “loser” and added, “I didn’t even know who he was.” [Hetherington] That was until he posted this fake image and said I blocked him. ”
In another X post the next day, CZ, who stepped down as Binance CEO in 2023 as part of a settlement with US regulators, argued that strong projects do not need to chase exchanges for a listing.
“If your project is strong, exchanges will compete to list your coin. If you have to beg an exchange to list it…you need to ask yourself why and who is providing value and to whom,” Zhao wrote.
Zhao’s post was a direct reply to X user YazanXBT, who agreed with Coinbase’s Head of Base, Jesse Pollak’s X post.
In response to Hetherington’s initial tweet regarding listing conditions, Pollack argued that “the cost of listing on an exchange should be 0%.” However, as multiple X users have pointed out, Coinbase has been accused, at least historically, of charging exorbitant fees for listing tokens, including from prominent DeFi founder Andre Cronje. However, CEX’s official position remains that it will not charge listing fees.
As others have pointed out in this week’s discussion, “fees” could also be a question of semantics if exchanges require allocation of tokens for marketing activities, as Binance claims.
Historically, centralized exchanges have been known to charge listing fees, often in the form of token allocations or financial commitments. These fees can vary widely, and there are reports that exchanges tend to charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for listing.
BNB listing surprises everyone
YazanXBT countered by pointing out that Coinbase has not yet listed BNB, which is currently the fourth largest crypto asset by market capitalization.
“Unless BNB (3rd largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization) is listed on Coinbase, your opinion on how another exchange should list cryptocurrencies is meaningless. Lead by example,” user X wrote.
Hours later, Coinbase briefly announced that it had added BNB to its listing roadmap, without explicitly mentioning the ongoing drama.
The move had little impact on the token’s price, which ended the third quarter at $1,030 after a recent rally, but rose more than 57.3% within the quarter after a “nearly stagnant year,” CoinGecko analysts noted in an October 16 report.
Less than an hour later, Coinbase also posted a blog post introducing a new asset listing process known as “Blue Carpet,” which included the following statement:
“Our listing process remains free, merit-based and built on trust.”
Early that day, October 15, Binance removed the support team’s post containing the legal threat and said in a separate post from the main X account, “We stand by our position, but the way we communicated went too far and we sincerely apologize to our users, partners, and the entire industry.”
According to CoinGecko, Binance remains the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, with cumulative spot trading volume of $2.06 billion in the third quarter, surpassing the first quarter’s quarterly record of $2.03 billion.