Denying Allegations Of High Listing Fee, Binance War Arguments With Coinbase

JAKARTA - Binance, one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, is back in the spotlight after allegations related to its asset listing cost policy. The controversy was triggered by a statement by Moonrock Capital CEO, Simon Dedic, who claimed that Binance requested up to 15% of the total supply of project tokens to be listed on their platforms. These allegations are reinforced by an example of an unnamed project called raising nearly $1 billion and must provide between $50 million to 100 million US Dollars (Rp787 billion to Rp1.57 trillion) to be able to enter the list on Binance.

Dedic said that although the projects had gone through a long due diligence process for more than a year, they were still faced with huge costs. This sparked debate among the crypto community, with several figures who considered that this requirement was actually detrimental to the crypto project ecosystem. Binance co-founder Yi He responded to this sharp criticism, which emphasized that their exchange was concerned with a rigorous selection process, not just project financial value.

Quoted from Crypto Potato, Yi He, in his response, strongly rejected the allegations. He explained that Binance has never only seen the financial side or the number of tokens offered. If a project does not pass our selection process, it will not be registered, no matter how much funds or tokens are provided," said Yi. He also invited the community to check its own Binance policies and conduct deeper research before believing in news that sparked fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD).

This policy, according to Yi, is designed to protect investors and ensure that only high-quality projects are registered with Binance. One of Binance's other supporters stated that this policy helps prevent the entry of sad tokens' that could potentially harm retail investors.

However, Dedic remains skeptical. He accused Binance of trying to evade it with a manipulative language, without completely denying the large amount they asked for. He said, "The mention or term used does not change the fact that the funds taken from the founders of this project are huge."

This controversy heated up with the inclusion of Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong into discussion. He stated that Coinbase offers free-cost listing services through their platform, Coinbase Asset Hub. This claim was quickly denied by Andre Cronje, founder of Fantom Network, who admitted that Coinbase actually asked for very high payments, ranging from 30 million US Dollars to 300 million US Dollars (Rp472 billion to Rp4.7 trillion). Cronje also revealed that the fees demanded recently reached 60 million US Dollars (Rp945 billion).

Tron Foundation's Justin Sun added to its own experience, calling on Coinbase asking for a guarantee of 500 million TRX or about 80 million US Dollars (Rp 1.2 trillion) and Bitcoin worth 250 million US Dollars (Rp 3.9 trillion) as a condition of listing. Sun stressed that Binance did not charge much at all for its project, affirming the huge difference in the policies of these two exchange giants.