On Monday, Ronin’s RON token fell sharply, just after its listing on Binance, triggering intense questioning within the community. Faced with suspicions of insider trading, Yi He, the exchange’s co-founder, spoke out on X, promising $10,000 to $5 million for anyone who could identify any “corrupt employees”.
Sudden drop in Ronin’s RON sparks controversy after listing on Binance
On Monday, Binance listed Ronin’s RON token on its platform, and the token’s price plummeted from $3.6 to $2.8 in just one minute, trading at $2.54 at the time of writing.
This sudden drop was all the more surprising given the RON’s impressive 87% year-to-date performance.
The incident caused quite a stir in the community, so much so that it prompted Binance co-founder Yi He to take the floor in a long thread on X:
感谢今天所有关心币安，热爱币安，支持币安的朋友们，也收到了很多建议，我都有认真一条条看。过去偶尔有关于币安上币信息泄漏的激烈讨论，通常是一些尚未发布代币的项目，社区为了保持热度过度宣传并不鲜见；但今天RONIN上币公告发布后RONIN价格下跌引发了社区激烈讨论，经过内部调查发现是之前集成公…
– Yi He (@heyibinance) February 5, 2024
She first explains that attentive users were able to guess the token’s imminent listing on the platform, thanks to clues left by the exchange’s on-chain activity. This could explain the asset’s recent performance.
Faced with this, new measures have been taken and future quotes could be cancelled in the event of leaks. In addition, Yi He explains that if an employee were caught leaking this type of confidential information, he or she would be warned initially and fired in the event of a repeat offence.
Insider trading within the platform?
Less than 2 weeks ago, Coinbase’s CEO suggested that insider trading might be at work at Binance, given a recurring tendency for certain addresses to buy tokens just before they are listed on the platform, only to resell them immediately afterwards:
It appears that there is a pattern of Binance front-running over 18+ months
I found connected wallets that:
-Bought $900k Rari seconds before and dumped minutes after listing
-Bought ~78K ERN between June 17 and June 21 and sold right after listing announcement
-Did same w/ TORN https://t.co/yAolrfeHkO pic.twitter.com/VRq3vzfcgd– Conor (@jconorgrogan) January 23, 2023
So, the latest events on Ronin’s RON could have some similarities, and in the face of this, the exchange seems determined to crack down.
Indeed, Yi He has promised between $10,000 and $5 million to anyone who can identify “corrupt Binance team members”. What’s more, she explained that the sanctions would go even further, as any projects or investment funds that subsequently recruited such people would then be placed on “Binance’s permanent blacklist”.
If such a drift were to be proven, it wouldn’t be the first time in the ecosystem. Former Coinbase and OpenSea employees, for example, have already had to face justice for insider trading.
