/latest/2018/08/400-btc-binance-ceo-changpeng-zhao-denies-exorbitant-listing-fees/
Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of popular cryptocurrency exchange Binance, recently took to Twitter to respond to claims that his company was charging 400 BTC ($2.5 million) as listing fees. The rumors surfaced on the same social media platform a couple of days ago when Christopher Franko, the CEO of Expanse, tweeted he had been given said listing quote by the exchange.
Franko went on to conduct a Twitter poll to find out if other project teams would pay that much to get their projects listed on Binance, whose daily trading volume hovers around the $1 billion mark. Per the results, 49% of respondents felt the fee was outrageous.
Just got a new @binance listing quote. 400 BTC
— Christopher Franko 🧐 (@FrankoCurrency) August 8, 2018
Would you give @binance 400 BTC to have your project listed there?
— Christopher Franko 🧐 (@FrankoCurrency) August 8, 2018
Binance CEO Responds
In a thread of his own, Changpeng Zhao stated that the listing fee quoted did not matter but rather the quality of the project involved. He started his tweet storm with the following statement.
We don’t list shitcoins even if they pay 400 or 4,000 BTC. ETH/NEO/XRP/EOS/XMR/LTC/more listed with no fee. Question is not “how much does Binance charge to list?” but “is my coin good enough?” It’s not the fee, it’s your project! Focus on your own project!
He added that complaints about listing fees usually come from projects that don’t get listed on Binance and, as such, aren’t charged any listing fee. The main deciding factor, according to the CEO, is how good a project is and not the listing fees it pays.
In another tweet, Changpeng Zhao stated the email Franko received was a spoof e-mail. He added that Binance neither mentions fees in e-mails, nor does it quote them in BTC. In his opinion, project creators who could not identify fake e-mails have no business creating cryptocurrency projects.
Changpeng Zhao later blocked Christopher Franko on Twitter. Presumably, Binance charge projects listing fees quoted in its native BNB token, which as CryptoGlobe covered has been bucking the bearish trend.
Controversy Ensues
In response, Christopher stated that Changpeng Zhao was lying, as the e-mail he received was from a Binance.com G Suite account. According to him, the only other possibilities were that the email being sent by a rogue employee or by someone who hacked Binance’s servers. Franko shared the screenshot below as proof.
So he is trying to say it was a spoofed email. But um.. it came from https://t.co/bTYQp6cgHK so either…
1. He is lying to save face.
2. someone has hacked their servers and sending emails out from it.
3. he has a rogue employeeI literally have nothing to gain from this.. pic.twitter.com/ubfyuxREEs
— Christopher Franko 🧐 (@FrankoCurrency) August 9, 2018
Christopher Franco added in subsequent tweets that Binance was free to charge exorbitant listing fees and that he saw no reason for the exchange to allegedly lie about it. In his view, coins and tokens that have been listed on Binance have gained more awareness as result. He still believed the fees were too high but expected Binance to own it instead of “lying” about it.
At press time Franko keeps on adding fuel to the fire. Through various tweets, Expanse’s CEO has been claiming the email that asked him for the 400 BTC listing fee is legitimate, pointing to various blog and social media posts where Binance asks users to contact it on said email.
