Binance wielded the axe yesterday and cut 30 trading pairs from its platform, including the BTC pairing for BTT, the token of the BitTorrent platform operated by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao’s (CZ) supposed friend Justin Sun. Despite some tokens having multiple pairs removed, none of those selected is being removed from the platform entirely, with the deciding factor seeming to be the volume of the trading pairs.
Notice of Removal of Trading Pairshttps://t.co/ehB6JTPGjH pic.twitter.com/iAKXamcTMO
— Binance (@binance) September 30, 2019
Binance’s announcement, made Monday, listed the following pairings as scheduled for removal in order to “improve liquidity and user trading experience”:
ANKR/PAX, ANKR/TUSD, ANKR/USDC, BCPT/PAX, BCPT/TUSD, BCPT/USDC, BTT/BTC, DENT/BTC, DOGE/PAX, DOGE/USDC, ERD/PAX, ERD/USDC, FTM/PAX, FTM/TUSD, FUEL/ETH, GTO/PAX, GTO/TUSD, GTO/USDC, LUN/ETH, NCASH/BNB, NPXS/BTC, ONE/PAX, ONE/TUSD, PHB/PAX, PHB/USDC, TFUEL/PAX, TFUEL/TUSD, TFUEL/USDC, WAVES/PAX, WIN/BTC.
Despite the large number of pairings removed, the event was not as brutal as other such cullings Binance has conducted in the last year, such as in February when they delisted five projects in their entirety. On this occasion the pairings with the lowest trading volume seem to have been selected in order to encourage more concentrated trading, an entirely predictable ramification of having so many different stablecoins on the platform – of the 30 cut pairs, only eight are non-stablecoin pairings. With altcoin interest still incredibly low among the crypto community it is likely that this won’t be the last time some multiple altcoin-stablecoin pairings are removed.
BitTorrent Loses BTC Pairing
One of the more surprising projects to be affected is the Bitcoin pairing of the BitTorrent token, which raised a few eyebrows given the seemingly close relationship between CZ and Justin Sun, CEO of BitTorrent owner Tron, and the fact that Binance launched the BTT token through an IEO:
>Run stab in the back.exe pic.twitter.com/I5t3XI96C2
— DonAlt (@CryptoDonAlt) September 30, 2019
Given Sun’s recent brushes with the law however, this might be perceived as a cooling of the relationship between the two, although some have taken the decision as evidence of CZ actually doing a solid for his old mate:
I think it’s a good thing. Those btc pair sell walls were ridiculous. The coin was unpumpable because of them.
— jeep (@jeep35065882) September 30, 2019
However the cuts are perceived, they are proof once again that the ecosystem is still inflated compared to the level of interest around crypto right now, and it would be foolish to bet against more contraction before the next wave of alt coin interest emerges.
