Binance, Coinbase and Tron Founders Trade Shots Over Exchange Listing Fees

Being listed on the largest centralized exchanges in the world is a big deal for projects, often boosting its token value in the process. How costly that could be for projects, however, is currently the talk of Crypto Twitter as founders and exchange executives trade conflicting stories about fees for listing on exchanges like Binance and Coinbase.

This chatter came after the CEO of investment firm Moonrock Capital, Simon Dedic, said that Binance asked a “tier one” project for 15% of its total token supply to be listed on the exchange.

Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, then quote-retweeted this, stating that “listings on Coinbase are free.” But that was hardly the end of the back-and-forth, as other notable firms waded in the discussion and begged to differ.

“Coinbase has asked us for; $300M, $50M, $30M, and more recently $60M,” Andrew Cronje, the founder of Yearn Finance and Sonic Labs, replied to Armstrong, claiming that Binance didn’t require any fee at all. “Lots of respect. But this is simply not true.”

Cronje did not respond to Decrypt’s request for comment to clarify what token or tokens he was talking about in his tweet.

Crypto projects often gun to be listed on centralized exchanges, as it opens the door to new investors. According to CoinMarketCap, Binance processes $12 billion worth of trading volume a day while Coinbase sees $1.6 billion. This can be a game-changer for the price of some tokens, reaching a larger and perhaps more mainstream audience in the process.

Recently, for example, AI-conceived Solana meme coin Goatse Maximus (GOAT) was listed as a Binance futures contract and soared to an all-time high price, breaking into the top 100 coinss by market capitalization. A day later, the hippo-themed token Moo Deng (MOODENG) soared 200% on a Binance futures listing. This has been nicknamed the “Binance effect” by crypto traders.

“Exactly the same situation with us. Binance charged us $0,” Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, responded to Cronje on Twitter. “Coinbase required us to pay 500 million TRX (worth $80 million) and demanded a $250 million BTC deposit in Coinbase Custody to boost their performance.”

Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao (aka “CZ”) replied to Sun saying that “quote attacks,” as he described Armstrong’s comments, have no place in the industry.

“Bitcoin never paid any listing fees,” CZ added. “Work on the project, not the exchange.”

Coinbase declined to comment further, simply pointing to Armstrong’s original tweet. Binance has not responded to Decrypt’s request for comment on this topic. 

Recently Binance explained that it will conduct a “compliance review” and check “token concentration”—in other words, vetting tokens in part based on how much of the supply is held by insiders. The company explained in a blog post that more than 10 potential projects had already failed such an added check.

This news came as Binance listed a second Neiro token on its exchange. On-chain data visualization company Bublemaps told Decrypt that it believed the post was referring to the two Solana tokens, one of which the firm had warned investors against.

Bubblemaps had found that 78% of the supply was sniped at launch, which increases the chance that the token could be “rug pulled” as insiders dump their tokens and cash out, leaving a potentially worthless bag for retail investors.

Edited by Andrew Hayward