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2.49%Binance Abruptly Deletes Alpha Watchlist Tokens, Spurring Unforeseen Pump and Dump
One trader lost $102,000 after getting swept up in the short-lived pump and dump.
What to know:
- Binance said that scammers took control of its Telegram channel and posted the tokens, which was later listed by the exchange's Chinese X account.
- The tokens mentioned spiked to the upside before giving up much of their gains.
- The exchange later clarified the error and deleted the post.
- One trader lost $102,000 after buying and panic selling ELIZA at a loss.
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance posted a list of "alpha watchlist tokens" to one of its Telegram channels on Wednesday, causing a spike in the mentioned tokens, however it then clarified that the information was "false" which led to the tokens giving up their newfound gains.
The post read: "Ready to explore early stage crypto projects?" before naming Wise Monkey (MONKY), Happy Cat (HAPPY), Rifampicin (RIF), Zircuit (ZRC) and ai16zeliza (ELIZA) as five projects with "strong fundamentals" and "active communities."
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
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Several traders speculated over whether the Telegram group was fake and trying to lure people into a rug pull, but it turns out that it was posted by binance_web3_wallet_community, which was shared by Binance's Chinese language X account on Wednesday.
A Binance spokesperson told CoinDesk that the link posted on X was exploited, thus leading to the false post being published.
"Unfortunately, this inactive link was exploited consequently by unauthorized individuals who set up a fraudulent Telegram channel under the name 'Binance Web3 Wallet Community' and posted intentionally misleading information," they said.
"We want to clarify that any information about specific tokens released on Binance Alpha prior to the official announcement on the Binance Wallet app is inaccurate. Binance does not disclose details about the tokens featured on Binance Alpha in advance."
MONKY rose by 38% after the post before dropping by 22% when it was deleted. One trader lost $102,000 in 12 minutes after buying 1.42M ELIZA at $0.1376 before panic selling at $0.09567 whilst the rest of the position was liquidated at $0.01157 when the false news was confirmed.
UPDATE (Dec. 19, 10:49 UTC): Adds statement from Binance spokesperson and alters wording in third paragraph to add how Binance's Chinese X profile posted an incorrect link.
Oliver Knight
Oliver Knight is the co-leader of CoinDesk data tokens and data team. Before joining CoinDesk in 2022 Oliver spent three years as the chief reporter at Coin Rivet. He first started investing in bitcoin in 2013 and spent a period of his career working at a market making firm in the UK. He does not currently have any crypto holdings.
