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Binance Ticker Symbol Mix-Up Reveals Dirty Dealings on Coin Listing

Last Updated March 16, 2023 4:09 AM
Greg Thomson
Last Updated March 16, 2023 4:09 AM

Cryptocurrency investors were left holding the wrong coin after a mix-up over ticker symbols on the Binance DEX.

But this simple ticker debacle inadvertently revealed some highly suspicious details about the listing process on the Binance DEX.

UPX Ticker Mix-Up on Binance DEX

The founders of uPlexa say the UPX ticker symbol is, and always has been, unique to their project. However, Binance DEX recently listed a token by the name of UDAP, which also uses the UPX ticker symbol.

At least two investors were left red-faced after mistakenly buying UDAP, and then coming unstuck when they attempted to move their funds to a dedicated uPlexa wallet. Now the most viewed thread on Binance’s community support forums is titled ‘Stolen Ticker Symbol ’, as the uPlexa community tries to make its concerns heard.

Thus far no communication has come back from the Binance team, despite support tickets being filed on Binance DEX, as well as the main Binance website.

Cases of copycat ticker symbols are fairly common in the crypto space, with numerous projects begrudgingly forced to share those three little letters.

But the uPlexa team have reason to be bitter. An examination of UDAP’s fundamentals reveals a coin which had no right to be listed on the Binance DEX in the first place.

Why Did Binance List a ‘Sh*tcoin’?

An examination of UDAP’s fundamentals leaves one with the impression of a ‘sh*tcoin’. The token has had no Github commits  in the past two years – and just three commits overall.

Likewise, the project’s Bitcointalk announcement, created in November 2018, was just one page long until a horde of uPlexa holders added to it with calls for its ticker symbol to be changed.

When the ‘Stolen Ticker Symbol’ complaint post was first created, it correctly pointed out that UDAP didn’t even have a CoinMarketCap page. That means that Binance DEX listed a token that couldn’t even meet the listing requirements of a data aggregator.

Suspiciously enough, an attempt to create a CoinMarketCap page for UDAP has since taken place. The page  remains empty, and contains zero information about the coin supply, circulating supply, or trade statistics.

One website which does supply those statistics is CoinGecko  – and the findings are damning. As seen below, UDAP follows a very distinct trading pattern.

uadp trading pattern
UDAP’s trading patterns are indicative of fake volume with the use of trading bots. | Source: CoinGecko

Such patterns are typical indicators of fake volume.  The above chart shows the past two weeks of trading activity, yet those fake volume waves stretch back as long as CoinGecko’s charts extend.

At this point, it might be wise to ask – why did Binance DEX list an obvious sh*tcoin?

$26,000 Listing Fee… For What?

A standard fee of 1,000 BNB must be paid to list a token on the Binance DEX. As recorded on the blockchain , UDAP paid its listing fee on August 22nd, when BNB was priced around $26.

That means $26,000 changed hands in order to get UDAP on Binance DEX. But according to uPlexa founder, Kyle Pierce , that payment may amount to little more than a bribe.

“Listing fees are typically supposed to go towards an audit. An audit of code, community, developers/team, and business model. As UDAP is just a token, there’s no code to audit. So it looks like the fee paid was more-so just a bribe, or the audit was simply not done.”

ERC-20 smart contracts like UDAP can be audited for just a few hundred dollars, whereas a sovereign blockchain would cost between $15,000-$22,000, according to Pierce.

With no information about the circulating supply, it’s difficult to believe that UDAP would have passed Binance DEX’s own token listing criteria .

Assessing the Scene

Somehow the UDAP token has managed to completely sidestep the official Binance DEX listing process. It now trades on the DEX  with a volume of just $500 over the past 24 hours. That amounts to over 30% of its daily trade volume overall.

With that in mind, it seems unlikely that there was ever any real demand for UDAP on the Binance DEX. Yet somehow it finds itself there. As Pierce notes, the usual battery of tests a coin must pass were probably not even carried out.

“It looks like code/tech was not audited, community was not audited, and token information & economics were not properly audited.”

Earlier this week Calvin Ayre prophesized the eventual shut down of Binance due to its less than ethical practices. In the same week, DigiByte (DGB) founder Jared Tate revealed the extortion demands he was subject to in order to make it onto the main Binance exchange.

It was then discovered that Binance had used its customers’ TRX holdings to vote itself in as No.1 TRON Super Representative, meaning it could collect all the block rewards from the TRON blockchain.

The Binance story continues…

This article was edited by Sam Bourgi.