A hackathon that mainly benefited Binance? The exchange platform is accused of having copied a winner for its Bicasso project. What are they accused of doing
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Is the Bicasso app plagiarism?
The co-creator of a similar app, Chatcasso, shared the accusations on Twitter, explaining that his team was the first to create such a service at a Binance hackathon held last December. Chatcasso won first place, as well as a cheque for 5,000 BUSD:
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There was a BNB Chain hackathon held in Seoul during Dec 17-19, 2022.
Our team @steemhunt entered.
We poured all our energy into building our project, stayed up late for nights, and finally won 1st place in the hackathon. https://t.co/4kZPJCSQBT
– ggoma (@0xggoma) March 2, 2023
As the co-creator of Chatcasso points out, the release of a similar service two months later, called Bicasso, cannot therefore be a coincidence:
“It’s disheartening to see a company that says it wants to support innovation and development steal from the same people who are working hard to build the ecosystem. “
The similarities between the two projects, right down to the slogans, is indeed particularly notable. And if nothing prevents Binance from producing its own service for creating NFTs with artificial intelligence, one can underline the questions that this raises with regard to its future hackatons.
Binance under fire in recent weeks
Binance has come under fire in recent weeks. The SEC has ordered Paxos to stop issuing the stablecoin BUSD. And there are also accusations about the B-USDC, the version of the USDC on the Binance Smart Chain. A few days ago, US senators also accused the platform of being a “hotbed of illegal activity”.
This dislike for the platform comes against a background of great mistrust, following the FTX affair. The exchange was considered “too big to fail”, which is why some of the players outside the ecosystem are so distrustful of the largest platform today. In the face of this, CEO Changpeng Zhao reaffirms his confidence on a daily basis, and claims that he is being targeted by a “FUD” campaign. What is certain is that this is a turbulent time for Binance, which is being rocked by more tangible accusations than usual. So it remains to be seen what impact this will have on the ecosystem as a whole.
