Coinbase and Binance Face Backlash Over Alleged Listing Fees

Crypto exchanges Coinbase and Binance are in hot water after industry executives accused the exchanges of charging exorbitant listing fees.

Simon Dedic, the co-founder of Moonrock Capital, ignited controversy on Oct. 31 after claiming that Binance demanded 15% of a token’s total supply as a listing fee.

“I recently spoke with a Tier 1 project that raised close to nine figures,” Dedic tweeted. “After wasting over a year of due diligence with Binance, they finally received a listing offer. Binance asked for 15% of their total token supply. Imagine paying $50–$100M just for a CEX listing.”

Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, shared the tweet, adding that Coinbase listings are free. “Drop us a note through our Asset Hub and we'll see if we can help,” he said.

However, Andre Cronje, the co-founder of Sonic Labs, previously known as Fantom Foundation, countered both Dedic’s and Armstrong’s claims.

“Binance charged us $0,” Cronje said. “Coinbase has asked us for $300 million, $50 million, $30 million, and more recently $60 million.”

Cronje’s remarks were backed by Justin Sun, the founder of Tron. Sun said Coinbase asked for 500 million TRX (valued at $80 million at the time) and an additional $250 million in BTC deposits for a listing, while Binance did not charge anything. TRX is not listed on Coinbase.

However, Luke Young, a former Coinbase employee, suggested that the funds requested by Coinbase were likely associated with Coinbase’s Earn platform — which offers yield to users in exchange for staking assets and completing quizzes about new tokens. Projects listed on Coinbase are encouraged to provide assets to fund Earn campaigns as a marketing tool.

“Coinbase never charges listing fees, but a separate part of Coinbase called Earn will offer to do an educational campaign for your project,” Young said. “I can see how Andre might have made an honest mistake assuming a Coinbase Earn campaign was required for a listing. It is definitely not required and is a completely different part of Coinbase that is unrelated to listings.”

Greg Osuri, the founder of Akash Network, shared that the AKT token was listed on Coinbase for free.

Neither Coinbase nor Binance responded to The Defiant’s requests for comment on the listing fee controversy.

According to Messari, Binance is the world’s largest crypto exchange, controlling over 23.9% of spot crypto trading volume. Meanwhile, Coinbase is the sixth-largest exchange globally, with a market share of 3.4%.

Binance launchpool

Yi He, the co-founder of Binance, emphasized that prospective tokens must pass a screening process to list on the exchange, “regardless of the amount of money or tokens involved.”

He also noted that Binance requests 20% of a token’s supply for a project to participate in a launchpool airdrop campaign. He stopped short of denying that new projects are generally expected to hand over a share of their token’s supply to secure a listing.

"The airdrop rules for Binance's launchpool and other listings are transparent and clear,” He said. “If you have 20% tokens and want to cooperate with Binance for airdrops, welcome to cooperate with our web3 wallet. It does not mean that projects that are willing to give airdrops can be listed on Binance.”

However, recent projects debuting via Binance launchpool did not earmark 20% of their supply to Binance launchpool campaigns in their tokenomics schedules.

Scroll distributed 5.5% of SCR’s supply via Binance Launchpool, with the project also allocating 19.5% of its supply to “ecosystem and growth” initiatives.

Just 3% of Hamster Kombat’s HMSTR token was distributed via Binance Launchpool, while 6% was earmarked for partnerships and grants, 4% for liquidity, and 4% for marketing. These allocations add up to 17% in total, with all remaining tokens set aside for its team and player rewards.

Caitzen distributed 9% of CATI via launchpool, while 5% was designated for liquidity, with all other tokens earmarked for its team, treasury, investors, airdrop, and advisors.