Key Takeaways
- Binance to implement stricter controls for team members involved in listings and enhance external communications
- The exchange will undergo background checks to ensure they do not employ staff dismissed from the exchange due to corruption.
Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has announced a significant move following allegations of corruption surrounding recent token listings. The exchange is offering a substantial $5 million bounty program in response to concerns raised after the price of Ronin Network’s (RON) token unexpectedly dropped following its listing on Binance.
The listing of Ronin Network’s token saw its price plummet from around $3.20 before the announcement to as low as $2.77 afterward. This unusual price movement prompted speculation within the crypto community, with some suggesting that leaks from within Binance may have played a role.
Yi He, co-founder of Binance, addressed these concerns on X (formerly Twitter), acknowledging the community’s worries and announcing the bounty program. The initiative aims to encourage individuals to come forward with information regarding any corrupt behavior among Binance team members involved in token listings or elsewhere.
As part of the announcement, Binance outlined several changes to its token listing process. These include implementing stricter controls for team members involved in listings and enhancing external communications to prevent leaks of listing information.
Yi He also emphasized the exchange’s commitment to transparency and integrity by stating that projects seeking to list tokens on Binance will undergo background checks to ensure they do not employ staff dismissed from the exchange due to corruption.
The latest development comes days after Conor Grogan, director of Coinbase, took to X to flag the transaction activity of a few anonymous wallets over the past 18 months. He noted that the anonymous wallets allegedly bought several unlisted tokens minutes before their listing announcement on Binance and dumped them right after the announcement.
Grogan suspects that this could have been caused by a “rogue employee connected to the listings team who would have details on new asset announcements or a trader who found some sort of API or staging /test trade exchange leak.”
