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Less than 24 hours after a Base builder publicly slammed Binance’s alleged listing policy on X, sparking a heated debate in the crypto community, Coinbase yesterday unexpectedly announced plans to list BNB. Though it’s 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, Oct. 14, when CJ Hetherington, the co-founder and CEO of Base prediction market Limitless, shared what he said were Binance listing terms in an X post. The post alleges that Binance — the world’s largest centralized exchange (CEX) by trading volume — asked for roughly 8% of his project’s token supply, broken into allocations for airdrops, liquidity and other marketing activations, for listing on Binance’s Alpha platform, as well as a $2 million security deposit in BNB for spot listing.

Legal Action Threats

The revelation on social media — which Limitless’ CEO later clarified was not under an NDA — set off a flurry of copy-and-paste posts and screenshots across X. It didn’t take long for an official Binance account to respond as well. In an X post, which was later deleted amid community backlash, but not before screenshots were posted, the exchange’s customer support account said it “does not charge listing fees,” and that the CEX “does not profit from its listing process.”

The official Binance support post also claimed that token allocations for listing end up being distributed to Binance users via airdrops and marketing campaigns, and that refundable deposits exist only as a safeguard against short-term exploitation.

However, the X post also provided contradictory statements, saying that the listing deal Hetherington had posted was allegedly proposed by Binance, but later accusing Hetherington of “illegal and unauthorised disclosure of confidential communications with Binace.” The X post also threatened to take legal action against the Limitless CEO.

Community Backfires

That quick denial with legal threats from the CEX triggered a wave of testimony and counterclaims across the crypto community, including from high-profile industry figures.

Mike Dudas, founder of 6th Man Ventures and co-founder of The Block, asserted on X that he had encountered “binance tge listing proposals of the EXACT same nature of cj’s at limitless in the past month.”

Jeffy Yu, founder of O Media, also weighed in, saying Binance had asked for $1 million in cash to list his token. He also noted that Bybit had demanded a substantial amount of tokens plus $250,000, so the team chose Kraken, which requested “$100-200k on top of token supply.”

However, some, like the now well-known trader James Wynn, called the wave of accusations a “coordinated FUD attack” aimed at Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao — better known in the industry as CZ.

Cecilia Hsueh, chief strategy officer at fellow exchange MEXC, provided insight into her company’s listing practices. In an X post, she acknowledged that MEXC charges a listing fee, but emphasized that it is relatively small, “probably the lowest among top CEXs,” and primarily allocated to helping projects promote their launch, though she didn’t disclose the figures.

Decentralized rivals were quick to seize the moment. Hyperliquid, the largest decentralized perpetuals exchange, which has recently been clashing with Binance-linked DEX Aster over perps trading volume dominance, highlighted its permissionless listings and emphasized a “no listing fee” model to contrast itself with Binance — without referring to the CEX directly.

CZ Steps In

It didn’t take long for CZ to weigh in on the uproar, and his participation arguably only added fuel to the fire.

In an X post, the Binance founder called Hetherington a “loser,” adding that he “didn’t even know who he [Hetherington] was until he posted this fake image saying I blocked him.”

In another X post the following day, CZ — who stepped down as Binance’s CEO in 2023, as part of a settlement with U.S. regulators — argued that strong projects shouldn’t have to chase exchanges for listings.

“If your project is strong, exchanges will race to list your coin. If you have to beg an exchange to list, then… You need to ask yourself why, and who is providing value to whom,” Zhao wrote.

Zhao’s post directly responded to an X user YazanXBT, who had chimed in on an X post by Coinbase’s head of Base, Jesse Pollak.

Pollak had argued that “it should cost 0% to be listed on an exchange,” in response to Hetherington’s initial tweet with the listing terms. However, as multiple X users pointed out, Coinbase has at least historically been accused of charging exorbitant fees to list a token, including by prominent DeFi founder Andre Cronje. The CEX’s official position, however, continues to be that it does not charge listing fees.

As others pointed out in this week’s debate, a “fee” could also be an issue of semantics, if the exchange requires a token allocation for marketing efforts, as Binance allegedly does.

Historically, centralized exchanges have been known to charge listing fees, often in the form of either token allocations or financial commitments. These fees can vary significantly, with reports indicating that exchanges tend to charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for listings.

BNB Listing Surprises Everyone

YazanXBT countered by noting that Coinbase had not yet listed BNB, currently the fourth-largest crypto asset by market cap.

“Unless BNB (the third largest cryptocurrency by market cap) gets listed on Coinbase, your opinion of how another exchange should list cryptocurrencies is meaningless. Lead by example,” the X user wrote.

A few hours later, Coinbase succinctly announced that it had added BNB to its listing roadmap, with no explicit reference to the ongoing drama.

The move had little impact on the token’s price, which after a recent rally, closed Q3 at $1,030, a more than 57.3% increase within the quarter, after a “mostly stagnant year,” analysts at CoinGecko noted in an Oct. 16 report.

Less than an hour earlier, Coinbase also posted a blog post introducing its new asset listing process, dubbed “The Blue Carpet,” which includes the statement:

Earlier that day, Oct. 15, Binance deleted its support team’s post containing legal threats, stating in a separate post from its main X account that while “we stand by our position, the way we communicated was excessive and we sincerely apologize to our users, partners, and the wider industry.”

Binance remains the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, posting a cumulative spot volume of $2.06 billion in Q3, surpassing its prior quarterly record of $2.03 billion in Q1, per CoinGecko.