BNB heads to Coinbase listings following community debate over exchange rules

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has added Binance’s BNB token to its roadmap for listings amid a series of online exchanges discussing the process.

On Tuesday, Limitless Labs CEO CJ Hetherington posted to X, contrasting what he claimed were the requirements for a token to be listed on Binance rather than Coinbase. According to the CEO, Binance’s requirements included a security deposit of 2 million BNB (BNB) for a spot listing, while Coinbase’s were limited to “build[ing] something meaningful on Base.”

The online exchange sparked debate, which only seemed to intensify when Coinbase’s head of Base, Jesse Pollak, chimed in to say “it should cost 0% to be listed on an exchange.” 

Binance initially responded to Hetherington with a since-deleted X post, threatening legal action against the CEO and calling some of his claims “false and defamatory.” The exchange claimed that it did not accept fees for listing tokens.

“While we stand by our position, the way we communicated was excessive and we sincerely apologize to our users, partners, and the wider industry,” said Binance in a follow-up to the deleted post on Wednesday.

Related: Bybit denies $1.4M listing fee, school promo accusations on X

Whether influenced by the social media debate or not, Coinbase followed by adding BNB to its roadmap on Wednesday, indicating that it was planning to list the token. Former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao praised the move but also later urged Coinbase to “list more BNB Chain projects.”

Source: Changpeng Zhao

CZ is Binance’s largest shareholder but no longer in a managing or operational role following a deal with US authorities that had him step down as CEO in 2023. However, he still reportedly controlled 64% of the circulating supply of BNB at about 94 million tokens as of June 2024.

Increasing transparency for exchanges’ listings

Crypto traders know the value that having any token listed on a top-tier exchange can have in causing the price to surge immediately following the news or slowly through greater adoption. Both Coinbase and Binance have taken steps to implement new changes to the token listing process as the number of cryptocurrencies increases.

In March, Binance launched a community co-governance structure, allowing users to vote to list or delist tokens. The announcement came a few weeks after CZ posted on X, claiming the exchange’s process was “a bit broken” due to the time between announcing a new token and listing it.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong made similar remarks in January, saying the company needed to rethink its listing process, given there were about “1 million tokens a week being created now, and growing.” The exchange released a guide in September saying every token application was “free and merit-based,” and included a business evaluation and legal review.

As of Thursday, BNB was the third-largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of about $160 billion. According to data from Nansen, the BNB price was $1,149 at the time of publication.

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