Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )
Author: Golem ( @web3_golem )
Recently, Binance, the leading crypto trading platform, has once again become the focus of market discussion. With a number of initiatives, Binance has received unanimous praise from the crypto community .
First, RedStone (RED) was listed on the Binance pre-market and claimed to airdrop 10% of the total supply of tokens to the community, but it ended up backstabbing users, with only more than 4,000 people eligible to airdrop. After Binance discovered the market sentiment, it decisively stood on the side of community users and suspended RED tokens. In the end, the project owner had to give in to the community and reallocate 2% of the total supply from ecosystem and data providers to community members who were left out of the initial airdrop allocation.
Coincidentally, RedStone is not the only one who wants to reap the community and retail investors. On March 4, GoPlusSecurity (GPS) was listed on Binance, and the daily chart directly started a downward trend. No matter where retail investors bought, they were the ones who took over, and the price was directly cut in half.
Just when the community thought that they had once again become the exit liquidity and could only vent their hatred through complaints without actual lethality, Binance took action. On March 7, Binance found that GPS market makers were continuously selling tokens without placing any buy orders, so it temporarily froze the market makers account.
On March 9, Binance officially announced again that during the investigation of a market maker of GoPlus Security (GPS) (hereinafter referred to as the market maker), Binance found that the market maker was also responsible for the market making activities of the MyShell (SHELL) project. In order to better protect Binance users, Binance has taken the following additional measures for the improper behavior of the market maker: the market maker has been delisted and prohibited from conducting any further market making activities on Binance; the relevant income of the market maker has been confiscated and will be used to compensate users of the GPS and SHELL projects (the detailed compensation plan will be determined and announced by the relevant project team).
The above actions have won Binance unanimous praise from the community. Many users lamented that Binance, the liquidity terminator of the crypto market, finally stood on the side of the community. Binance co-founder He Yi also played a popular meme on the X platform, expressing that the project side should really fear, respect and respect the community.
Sometimes, Binance appears to be too approachable, causing project owners to lose the fear, awe, and respect they should have for Binance.
Binance is not just an occasional act of kindness to the community
A tall tree attracts the wind. Since 2024, when the cryptocurrency community began to collectively attack VCs and altcoins, Binance, as a liquidity center, was also discussed as a tool for joint project parties and VCs to cut community leeks. Negative public opinions such as rumors of girlfriend coins and external or internal interest transfers that allow junk projects to obtain listing qualifications broke out from time to time, and Binance was forced to stand up and prove how much it had eaten.
When a company grows big enough, problems such as big company disease and corruption are bound to occur. As strong as ByteDance is in Web2, 353 employees were fired for violations in 2024. In the Web3 industry, which is closer to users and more directly related to money, there will inevitably be more evil groups. The market maker involved in this GPS incident is rumored to be a brokerage assembly line that claims to be a one-year fast pass through Binance , and has been harvesting retail investors in Binance for a long time. There may be more similar evil groups lurking underwater, but Binances handling of the GPS incident this time has clearly shown that it stands on the side of the community and retail investors, and it is also a slap in the face of previous conspiracy theories such as Binance harvests community leeks.
However, Binance’s “good deeds” to the community are not just occasional flattery when its reputation collapses. Binance has always valued the voice of the community and has long regarded it as an important driving force in its development process.
He Yi, the co-founder of Binance, has long called herself Binances No. 1 Customer Service, and is active on social media such as X, handling issues for Binance users, collecting suggestions for Binances Web3 wallet products, and responding to criticisms about Binance for users. As a founder, she could have stayed behind the scenes forever, but she still chose to use herself as an example to express to the community that Binance hopes to hear more voices and hopes that more people will participate in the construction of Binance.
On March 7, Binance announced that it would optimize the coin listing mechanism and launched two community co-governance methods, voting for listing and voting for delisting, aiming to give users more rights to participate in decision-making. Voting for listing means that users with an account holding of at least 0.01 BNB can vote for their favorite projects, and projects with high votes and passing due diligence will be listed on Binance; voting for delisting means that users with an account holding of at least 0.01 BNB can express their intention to delist projects that are already in the risk observation zone (Monitoring Zone) through voting. Voting for listing and Voting for delisting return more power to the community.
Previously, users complaints about VC coins were nothing more than that there was no room for secondary growth after the high-valuation tokens were launched, and retail investors became VCs takers. The second half of 2024 was the peak period of the currency circles condemnation of VC coins and Binance, and it was also the peak period of the Solana Meme coin craze. Binance successfully met the communitys speculative needs by launching Meme coins with a community foundation and a low market value, achieving a win-win situation for itself and the community. (Recommended reading: Can connecting to Meme coins really make Binance and the community win-win? )
Today, the meme coin craze has subsided, and some of the attention of funds has returned to some value coins, and users needs have also changed back to the need for sufficient left-side trading space. At this time, Binances focus has become to protect the community from malicious harvesting while giving users sufficient left-side trading space for new coins through innovative mechanisms.
Everything Binance does may not be entirely correct, but it is definitely what the market and the community need.
With great power comes great responsibility
Since ancient times, due to the differences in division of labor and influence within the industry, communities and retail investors who are end users but at the downstream of the encryption industry have long been isolated by information asymmetry. Not only have they lost their voice, but they are sometimes even harvested by upstream VCs, project parties, exchanges, and market makers in the industry. VCs unlocking large amounts of low-priced chips to dump the market, project parties airdropping and secretly selling coins, and exchanges charging listing fees in exchange for community withdrawal of liquidity are all vivid examples.
The trust relationship between the upstream and downstream of the crypto industry is collapsing at an accelerated pace. Gradually, not touching VC and altcoins, selling immediately after airdrops, and shorting new coins as soon as they are launched have become the helpless consensus of the community and retail investors when they cannot sanction industry evil. However, although we are in the crypto industry where the regulatory tentacles have not yet fully reached, it is not that no one can stop these evil acts.
“With great power comes great responsibility.” Crypto exchanges still play a pivotal role in the entire crypto industry and are one of the market rule makers and enforcers. Therefore, they should assume the important responsibility of promoting fair competition in the industry and protecting the interests of users.
Binance is fulfilling this responsibility, whether it is standing with the community to counter unfair airdrop rules of the project party, or freezing the accounts of malicious market makers, Binance is proving with actions that it will no longer be the good guy of the project party, but become the guardian of the industry ecology. In the future, the industry needs more such Binance to make a fair, transparent and sustainable market environment the cornerstone of the crypto industry.
