30s Summary

Moonrock Capital’s CEO claims that Binance insists on 15% of a project’s total token supply for listing, but Binance’s co-founder, Yi He, refutes this. Binance requires project teams to suggest a listing fee or ‘donation’ for consideration, and donates all fees to charity. The debate draws attention to the listing policies of centralized exchanges. Binance’s recent addition of Scroll, a scaling solution, sparked further criticism. Users argue that this move undermines Scroll’s decentralization, while others question high listing fees, challenging why new projects need to give up a portion of their tokens for listing on centralized exchanges.

Full Article

The CEO of the investment firm Moonrock Capital recently made a claim that Binance demanded 15% of a project’s total token supply to list it on the exchange. However, Binance’s co-founder, Yi He, denied the claim. Yi He clarified that Binance doesn’t ask for a percentage of a project’s token supply or even a set fee to list a project. Binance’s listing policy has been transparent since 2018 and requires the team of a project to propose a listing fee or ‘donation’ but doesn’t have a set minimum listing fee. Binance also gives all listing fees to charity.

The claim from the Moonrock CEO has ignited a debate about the listing policies of centralized exchanges. Andre Cronje, the co-founder and developer of Sonic, has joined the debate too and threw similar accusations at Coinbase.

As of September 2024, centralized exchanges like Binance, OKX, HTX, Coinbase, Kraken, and Bybit have seen a significant drop in trading. Reasons for this downturn range from geopolitical tensions, apprehension about the 2024 US election to the rise in the volume of trading on decentralized exchanges.

On October 11, Binance added a scaling solution called Scroll to its listing, which has been critiqued by crypto users. They criticize this move because they believe it undermines the decentralized essence of Scroll.

The criticisms continue with a user named Zeng Jiajun. He used the situation to make a point against centralized exchanges that demand high listing fees. He questioned how it would look if Vitalik Buterin had to pay 5.5% to OKX to list Ether on the exchange. He aimed to argue against the notion of centralized exchanges demanding a chunk of a project’s tokens to list new digital assets.