Saltık 
In the crypto world, allegations have emerged that some major centralized exchanges (CEX) are charging fees of up to hundreds of millions of dollars for new token listings. Tron founder Justin Sun claimed that Coinbase requested a total of $330 million to list Tron. Sun said in a post on November 4 that Binance did not charge any fees for the Tron listing, but Coinbase requested 500 million TRX tokens (approximately $80 million) and a $250 million Bitcoin deposit to be held in Coinbase Custody.
Although there is no evidence for these claims, it stands out as a remarkable development because Coinbase claims that it does not charge fees for new cryptocurrency listings. “Asset listings are free on Coinbase,” Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong said in a statement on Nov. 2.
Binance and Coinbase are among the most popular centralized crypto exchanges worldwide. Binance controls 39.5% of total spot crypto trading volume, while Coinbase has a 6.1% market share, according to CoinGecko data.
Fantom Listing Fee Allegations: Andre Cronje’s Statement
Alongside Tron founder Sun, Fantom Network founder Andre Cronje also said that Coinbase charged various fees to list Fantom. “Binance charged us $0. But Coinbase asked us for $300 million, $50 million, $30 million, and more recently $60 million,” Cronje said in response to Armstrong’s post. Cronje is known for being a respected name in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space, describing the Sonic blockchain as the fastest Ethereum Virtual Machine chain, capable of reaching a final speed of 720 milliseconds per second.
Cronje has previously founded projects such as Yearn.finance and Keep3r Network.
Binance’s Policy Clarification after Coinbase Allegations
Binance has also faced similar allegations, but Binance co-founder Yi He clarified that the company evaluates projects for listing, but does not charge a percentage or flat fee. Binance’s listing policy, which has been in effect since 2018, states that all listing fees are “transparent” and 100% are donated to charity.
These allegations have sparked discussions about transparency in the crypto market and the high-cost listing practices of centralized exchanges, and could lead to more projects turning to decentralized trading platforms.