Christopher Franko claimed to have received an email from Binance stating that a listing costs 400 BTC. The exchange’s CEO quickly refuted this claim with sharp words about “shitcoins”.

Christopher Franko Claims to Receive Quote from Binance

Recently, Expanse co-founder Christopher Franko claimed to have gotten a quote from Binance for a token listing. According to him, a listing on Binance costs 400 BTC. At the time of Franko’s tweet, the Bitcoin price was just over $6,800, which would have put a Binance listing at over $2,700,000 if the information was accurate.

Is Franko’s claim correct, though? If so, that would be a record high fee for exchange listings. However, Binance was quick to throw shade on his claim.

Binance CEO Blasts Back Over Franko’s Claims

As this bit of news spread all over Crypto-Twitter, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao blasted back by saying, “We don’t list shitcoins,” in a tweet that implied that he thought Expanse was not a legitimate project worthy of being listed on Binance. He claims that his exchange is more likely to consider the quality of a project than purely go for the high listing fees.

Franko did upload a screenshot of an email that he claimed was from a customer service representative but backed down when Zhao questioned its authenticity.

“The email Franko showed is a spoofed/scam email, not from Binance. Binance never quotes fees in an email, and not in BTC. Project owners should be able to spot email spoofing, those who can’t should not issue a coin. The communication process/method tells a lot about a coin,” Zhao said.

Some Exchange Do Charge High Listing Fees

It may not be surprising that some cryptocurrency enthusiasts believe Franko rather than Zhao on this matter. Zhao did acknowledge that Binance does charge a fee for listing a coin on its exchange after it has been vetted and accepted.

Some exchanges, mostly decentralized exchanges, do offer free or low-cost listings of cryptocurrencies and tokens. Others charge anywhere from $50,000 to $1 million, so listing fees can actually be higher than what most stock exchanges charge for a new listing.

This will naturally discourage some legitimate developer teams who do not see exchange listings as the entire point of their projects. One ICO advisor told Business Insider that the listing fees were “too much,” which indicates that many projects funded through ICOs may choose to focus on development rather than pursue listings on major exchanges if they did not raise enough to do both.

Exchanges are often criticized by project organizers for effectively acting like bridge trolls who refuse access to valuable exposure and investments if those projects simply do not have the funds to pay their high fees. None of them seemed willing to antagonize the higher priced exchanges or violate Non-Disclosure Agreements by naming names, however.

Was Franko tricked by a spoof email, or did he have some legitimate beef with Binance? It may be that Franko was interested in pursuing a listing and got an email from either an ingenious spoofer who saw this as an easy way to make some a hefty sum of BTC, or a rogue employee who dislikes the Expanse project.

While it’s unlikely that Expanse will be listed on Binance anytime soon, the fact that some people were willing to believe Christopher Franko’s claim highlights the painful choice that many cryptocurrency and ICO teams have to make: Coming up with the cash to get listed on influential exchanges that charge high fees, or simply doing without.