The biggest cryptocurrency exchange wants to make its coin listing process a bit less sketchy.
In a Medium post on Monday, the company said that moving forward it would disclose fees that arise in the process of getting a coin listed on the exchange and donate all listing fees to charity. Specifically, its own charity: Blockchain Charity Foundation, “a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of blockchain-enabled philanthropy towards achieving global sustainable development.”
According to the blog post, Binance will allow any team trying to get listed to name its own fee, which the company now calls a “donation.” Binance says that it will not “dictate” that amount nor is there a minimum fee for a project to get listed.
The decision to open up about its listing fees is likely a response to prior accusations that Binance charged as much as $2.6M for projects that sought to get listed. At the time, the company denied those claims, made on Twitter.
It’s cute that @binance and @cz_binance are trying to save face. The listing fee is now a “donation” but if they aren’t a tax exempt organization (charity) then they can and will skim off the top of the donation and no one will ever know. Will they disclose past “donations” too?
— Christopher Franko 
(@FrankoCurrency) October 8, 2018
While Binance suggested that it will disclose the amount of “donations” moving forward, it’s certainly possible for money to find its way back out of an in-house charitable arm.
“Binance will continue to use the same high standard for the listing review process,” Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao or “CZ” said in the post. “A large donation does not guarantee or in any way influence the outcome of our listing review process.”
