The lowercase "Neiro" was listed, and Binance was caught in a public opinion crisis.
A week ago, Gyro Finance wrote an article titled "Do Exchanges Stand with "NEIRO"? The MEME Civil War is Underway", which mentioned the incident in which the exchange stood with the capitalized "NEIRO" and caused MEME controversy. At that time, although users were quite dissatisfied with the exchange, because the capitalized NEIRO contract was launched by OKX and Binance, community users still flocked to NEIRO driven by orthodoxy, which brought an end to the battle of succession between uppercase and lowercase.
I thought the matter had come to an end, but I never expected that Binance would launch the lowercase "Neiro" spot right after that. The extreme operation of the exchange put the "cryptodog" on the cusp of the storm again, and triggered strong doubts from the market about Binance and He Yi .
After Binance and OKX launched the uppercase "NEIRO" contract on September 6, uppercase and lowercase Neiro had completely different fates.
NEIRO's biggest positive news has landed, and the trend has risen first and then fallen. Community users have quickly poured in, and the price has accelerated from $0.06 to $0.2 before falling. The market value has also risen to $200 million before falling back. On September 15, the price of NEIRO stabilized at $0.13, with a market value of about $130 million. The lowercase "Neiro" that is believed to be a fake Monkey King has lost the battle, with a market value of $20 million falling to $4.81 million, and the price falling to $0.000039, facing the risk of zeroing again. If nothing unexpected happens, as expected, after the orthodoxy is decided, although the winners are often short-lived, the losers can only wait for the end to come.
But the turn of events on September 16 made things confusing. On September 16, Binance released a coin listing announcement, saying that it would add FirstNeiro on Ethereum (Neiro), Turbo (TURBO) and Baby Doge Coin (1MBABYDOGE) to simple coin earning, flash exchange and isolated margin trading. Binance margin will add Neiro, TURBO and 1MBABYDOGE as borrowable assets in cross margin and isolated margin leverage, and add Neiro/USDT, TURBO/USDT and 1MBABYDOGE/USDT trading pairs in cross margin and isolated-position leverage.
As a leading exchange, Binance is relatively cautious in listing coins. The fact that it listed three MEME tokens in a short period of time has already attracted attention, and the appearance of lowercase Neiro is even more jaw-dropping. After all, just two weeks ago, Binance seemed to be a supporter of "NEIRO".
Under the influence of this news, lowercase Neiro was reborn and ushered in an accelerated rise, soaring from 0.00036 to 0.00082 US dollars, an increase of about 3 times in 2 days, and now it is 0.00079 US dollars, with a market value of more than 300 million US dollars. The big NEIRO was counterattacked, and the price plummeted more than 30 times to 0.0038 US dollars, and the market value fell below 4 million US dollars. Although it rebounded later, it was still significantly lower than the peak period. At present, its price is stable at around 0.072 US dollars, and the market value is less than 80 million.
After the fierce market trading ended, community users finally had a chance to breathe, and dissatisfaction with Binance was imminent. Most users said that Binance's move was incredible and that it was treating users as toys. Some users sold lowercase coins and became uppercase dog holders only after it was clear that they supported "NEIRO", but this wave of reversal undoubtedly caused serious losses to the holders.
On the other hand, the listing of a MEME token with a market value of less than $16 million and a community of only a few thousand members on Binance, a leading exchange, also made the market unhappy. Some KOLs expressed strong opinions, with @cozypront saying that Binance had already listed a token with the same name with a market value of $130 million, but turned around and supported a lowercase token with a market value of $15 million, which was a blatant "idiotic operation".
Amid the criticism, the suspicion of insider trading was also brought to the fore. A screenshot of a WeChat account called "Vic TALK Consulting Service Group" was widely circulated. In it, the group owner Vic suggested buying BabyDoge and mentioned that he had heard of Turbo, saying that he heard about it at the same time as UXLINK. But coincidentally, on September 15, Binance launched the UXLINK contract, and on the next day, BabyDoge and Turbo also appeared together in Binance's listing announcement.
Such an accurate prediction, is it really just a coincidence? The market obviously doesn’t think so, believing that this is undoubtedly insider information and insider trading by Binance staff. For a time, abuse and doubts were rampant, pointing directly at Binance’s lowering of the coin listing standards, betraying the community, and guiding the direction of MEME.
In this context, He Yi once again stepped forward to maintain stability. He Yi responded in TG that Binance had no intention of directing MEME, and that the listing was only because there was no hot spot at present. He also summarized the categories of listed coins, saying that there are currently only three types of tokens, TG mini-games, high VC tokens for infrastructure projects, and MEME coins. He also explained this incident accordingly, saying that the contract followed the trend and listed NEIRO, but the community reported that the currency was obviously insider trading, so he spent time looking for projects with lower market value and dispersed coin holdings.
As for the issue of insider trading, Vic TALK also responded on X, saying that the source of the news was a trader who focused on the secondary level. He shared it in the group because of his high winning rate. He was not an insider of Binance, and his personal cooperation with Binance was very limited, with only a few video releases and AMAs, far from the level of internal resource sharing. The Binance Chinese community also forwarded and responded that Binance attaches great importance to any behavior involving leakage or corruption. The Neiro incident was just a mistake. Binance will also strictly investigate employee violations, and will pursue criminal responsibility for serious circumstances. It also called on the market to report corruption, and the reward will be as high as 5 million US dollars.
Users are clearly not buying into the various responses, and some are even bringing up old issues and mentioning the leak of information when other currencies were launched. Coincidentally, regulators have also intervened, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently filing a proposed revised complaint against Binance, focusing on Binance's token listing process, emphasizing BNB secondary sales and Binance Simple Earn, and accusing Binance of acting as an unregistered securities provider.
As public opinion continued to ferment, He Yi had no choice but to write another long article "If We Have Different Opinions, Then You May Be Right" in response, expounding on the current anxiety in the crypto and focusing on the coin listing process, saying that coin listing consists of four links: business, research group, committee, and compliance review. The core principle is to list projects with users and traffic, projects that survive for a long time, and projects with solid business logic . Regarding the issue of insider trading, He Yi also stated that the current Binance coin listing process is monitored by Monitor, and if insider trading is found, it will be reported to the U.S. Department of Justice and the inspectors stationed by Fincen, and employees involved in insider trading will be held criminally responsible.
At present, this incident seems to be gradually coming to an end. Although the controversy is still ongoing, public opinion is slowly calming down. In addition to the incident, Binance's situation is also worth thinking about. As a leading exchange, Binance is under great expectations. Most projects, no matter how decentralized they claim to be, are ultimately proud of being listed as a so-called big exchange.
In this context, Binance is not just an exchange, it symbolizes traffic aggregation and user expectations, and is an industry vane. It naturally has a huge influence, and therefore all its actions will be infinitely magnified by the spotlight. This is why other exchanges have no objections to listing MEME and TG game tokens, but Binance has become the target of public criticism. As of now, Binance is indeed in a dilemma. It has been criticized for deviating from the community and siding with VC by listing infrastructure tokens, and for lowering the listing standards and manipulating the market by listing MEME tokens. If it remains unchanged, it will be dissed for lacking innovative spirit and being unable to guide the development of the industry.
On the other hand, as the industry gradually moves towards compliance, as He Yi said, the Wild West is gone, and the era of making money with courage and bravery is gone. The current situation facing the industry is the macro resonance and traffic dilemma. When it comes to the most affected individuals, the exchanges that have reaped the benefits will inevitably bear the brunt. Not only do they have to dance with regulatory shackles, but they also have to face the decline in traffic. Under this circumstance, the exchanges have finally been disenchanted and returned to the platform positioning of making a living by traffic.
The core of the current public criticism of exchanges also starts from this. There is a structural misalignment between the positioning of Binance by users and the positioning of Binance itself. Users expect exchanges to be "the light of the right path" and have industry visions, but exchanges are just a part of the ecosystem. Since it is just a part, Binance will inevitably face the game of commercialization, not to mention the compliance sickle hanging high. Of course, with the natural traffic advantage, exchanges are not worried about profits, but how to make more money while maintaining industry trust is still a far-reaching topic.
In the eyes of many users, the so-called "MEME test" should not appear in the context of Binance, but from the perspective of Binance, even the industry's leading exchange is facing a lot of competition. Compliance exchanges are punching hard, and offshore exchanges are pressing step by step. If you don't have popular coins, you will only make wedding clothes for competitors. It is understandable to test the waters for innovation, especially at present, the voice of exchanges is rapidly decreasing, and the creators of hot spots no longer have a monopoly on exchanges.
It is with this concept that Binance 2.0 has made many attempts under the leadership of the new CEO He Yi since CZ left. The so-called girlfriend coins and air coins are mostly derived from this. After all, there is a serious lack of market hotspots, and high FDV tokens collapsed as soon as they went online. Under the pressure of public opinion, Binance has become more cautious about this.
However, when it comes to the selection of listed coins, Binance also has something to consider. TON games and MEME are flying, but the coins they choose are not at the forefront of the track and do not have a strong community. Can they completely rule out the possibility of insider trading scams? Interestingly, in May this year, Binance issued an announcement stating that the requirements for listing coins are small and medium market capitalization in the track, a large number of tokens reserved for community users, a self-sufficient business model and a sustainable community foundation. Looking at the coins it has launched recently, it seems that most of them do not belong to the above categories.
But from the user's perspective, the butt determines the head, which is inevitable. The investors who suffered the most serious criticism in this incident are undoubtedly the investors who suffered losses. When the capital coin was launched, the lowercase coin community wailed, and when the lowercase coin was launched, the capital coin supporters cursed again. In the final analysis, interests are the key to making users stand in line. One user joked, "I don't hate the shady dealings, I hate that there is no me in the shady dealings."
Despite facing numerous doubts, it is undeniable that Binance is still the leader in the ecosystem. As for the strategic path of this leader, users and real managers are destined to have differences when the ecological network moves from open to closed. Various internal and external uncertainties can become the fuse of differences. For example, at present, there are endless remarks that rise to He Yi attacks and refutations.
Would it be better to return to the original state? Perhaps the market expects CZ, who will be released from prison on September 29, to give a new answer.
