Binance CEO reveals one key factor for token listings

Published at: Nov. 30, 2021

The CEO of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, has disclosed some information on how to get listed on the trading platform.

The most important criteria for listing a cryptocurrency on Binance is the number of users, CEO Changpeng Zhao said in a Forbes interview on Nov. 29.

CZ went on to say that there are many other factors like the number of active addresses on blockchain, social media audience and code commits. However, the number of users is “the key metric,” he said:

“If a coin has a large number of users, then we will list it. That’s the overwhelming significant attribute. Consider for example meme tokens, even though I personally don't get it, if it's used by a large number of users we list it. We go by the community, my opinion doesn’t matter.”

According to Binance’s listing tips from its CEO, the number of users is just one of many factors for listing a token on the crypto exchange. “If you have a large number of users, your product has value. That’s the easiest to measure. Do include the user statistics in the application form. It will help significantly,” the CEO’s statement on Binance listings reads.

According to Sergei Khitrov, founder of crypto listing-focused platform Listing.Help, major crypto exchanges like Binance don’t need to list minor tokens as they earn mainly from trading volumes rather than listings.

“This is one of the main problems that many projects do not understand. They should start with building a community. And that means no 500 or 10,000 people in a Telegram channel, but a much larger audience,” Khitrov told Cointelegraph. He added that token creators are recommended to start from smaller exchanges.

At the time of writing, Binance exchange supports a total of 346 cryptocurrencies, including major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), as well as popular meme tokens like Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB), according to data from CoinGecko. Binance’s daily trading volume is estimated at $28 billion.

In comparison, OKEx, the second-largest crypto exchange by trading volumes, has listed 312 coins and has a trading volume of roughly $7 billion. The United States-based crypto exchange Coinbase supports just 123 tokens with a daily trading volume of about $6 billion.

Some major centralized exchanges (CEX) have more tokens listed than Binance does, with Bittrex listing over 450 cryptocurrencies at the time of writing.

As opposed to a CEX, decentralized exchanges (DEX) are the world’s biggest platforms in terms of the number of listed cryptocurrencies as DEXes like PancakeSwap do not require contacting an exchange or asking permission. As such, PancakeSwap, a DEX running on the Binance Smart Chain, has over 3,200 listed tokens, while Uniswap lists over 1,800 cryptocurrencies.

Last month, PancakeSwap listed the Squid Game (SQUID) token, a cryptocurrency scam inspired by the eponymous Netflix show, which posted over 45,000% growth in a few days after launch. The token is listed on Binance-owned crypto website CoinMarketCap, while competitors like CoinGecko retracted from listing SQUID due to being “most likely a scam.”