Escalating Crypto Drama Rips TRON’s US Binance Listing as a Chinese Govt Scam

by
Greg Thomson
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Follow on:

• DigiByte (DGB) founder says TRON (TRX) is a Chinese government scam coin.
• TRON's presence on Binance's US platform threatens to undermine American lawmakers.
• Follows past drama between DigiByte and the Binance-TRON cooperative.

TRON (TRX) is a Chinese government scam coin, and its listing on Binance US threatens to undermine faith in American lawmakers.

That’s according to DigiByte (DGB) founder Jared Tate, as he reacted to Wednesday’s news that Binance US would be listing TRON, along with 17 other altcoins.

Tate was unequivocal in his damnation of both TRON and Binance and claims both projects are duping unknowing American citizens.

Tate posted to Twitter on Thursday:

If American regulators allow @BinanceAmerica to continue operating let alone list the biggest scam in crypto history fronted by the Chinese government to dupe unknowing American citizens there will be an unprecedented loss of faith in our law makers.

The Binance vs DigiByte Saga

This isn’t the first time Tate has brushed up against Binance. In 2017 Binance demanded a ‘listing fee’ in return for allowing DigiByte to trade on its platform. When Tate asked how much he’d have to pay, a Binance representative replied: “How much you got?”

More recently, Tate revealed he was asked for $300,000, plus 3% of the entire DigiByte coin supply in return for a listing.

Binance, headed by the founder and chief executive Changpeng Zhao (CZ), denied all such claims at the time and continues to do so. But corroboration of Binance’s less than ethical practices isn’t hard to find.

According to uPlexa (UPX) founder, Kyle Pierce, the 1,000 BNB demanded by Binance to trade on the Binance DEX amounts to little more than a bribe. Speaking of the UDAP token, Pierce said:

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.

TRON vs Tate

Nor is this the first time Tate has brushed up against TRON. TRON’s founder Justin Sun recently purchased the cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex. One of Sun’s first decisions as the owner was to delist the DigiByte (DGB) coin.

After a careful review, we decided DigiByte is not qualified per our listing standard. We will delist DGB soon. Details to be announced.

Binance and TRON, or Justin Sun and CZ, have a long history of cooperation. Both are Chinese nationals, both left their home country to form blockchain/crypto projects, and both have been the subject of police action by their domestic authorities if the latest reports are to be believed.

In September of this year, Binance voted itself in as the lead TRON Super Representative, meaning it would collect the majority of block rewards from the TRX blockchain.

Tate’s accusation that TRON is a Chinese government front may stem from Justin Sun’s willingness to humble himself before the Chinese leadership in the past.

In July, when Sun canceled a lunch meeting with Warren Buffet, he issued a groveling public apology to the Chinese authorities for his “over-marketing”. Does that mean China has a say in the TRON blockchain ecosystem?