Binance continues to dominate the cryptocurrency market, with their exchange accounting for almost twice the volume of the second-place exchange. In a relatively unregulated market, this gives the cryptocurrency exchange an incredible amount of power – their actions can have far reaching consequences. Outside of Coinbase, addition to the Binance platform has the largest impact on the price of a coin.
Consequently, delisting from Binance carries with it a price drop – and an attached stigma. A handful of prominent coins discovered this recently, when they were suddenly delisted. Among the four dropped currencies was Bytecoin (BCN) – the progenitor of Monero (XMR) and a top 100 coin.
Binance Delists Four Coins
Binance announced the delisting through their blog on October 8th. While they didn’t attach specific criteria to each given coin, they did offer a list of potential reasons that they would delist coins. The list included; team commitment, quality of development activity, stability, communication, responsiveness, ethics and the most nebulous – contributing to a healthy cryptocurrency industry. This amounts to a wide net that gives Binance carte blanche to delist coins at will and Bytecoin’s community is already fighting for relisting.
Generally, delisting occurs with small market cap coins that are no longer seeing any appreciable activity. The other three delisted coins – Iconomi (ICN), ChatCoin (CHAT) and Triggers (TRIG) – are all measuring hundreds of thousands of dollars in trading volume each day. Iconomi is ranked #131 as of October 12th, nearly placing it in the top 100 alongside Bytecoin. While Binance is tight lipped about the exact reasoning behind each individual delisting, they are now quite clear about the listing process.
Binance Pledges Transparency for Listing Procedure
In the past, Binance occasionally suffered from criticism about the listing process for new coins. Some accused them of gouging the developers, with Expanse’s co-founder claiming that they wanted as much as $2.6 million to list a new coin. Now, the crypto exchange is making it quite clear how much it costs to get listed – whatever the development team wishes to pay. Relabeled as a ‘donation’, this money will be sent directly along to Binance’s own charity program – the Blockchain Charity Foundation.
There will be no minimum listing price, although Binance clarified that there is more to the process than just the fee. All coins added to the platform must still be properly vetted and the cryptocurrency exchange will continue to perform all due diligence before a listing occurs. This should help combat rumors that the crypto exchange is unfairly profiting off coin development teams – while also advancing the altruistic efforts of the Blockchain Charity Foundation.
Article By: Adam Stone
