Binance has delisted five coins from its platform that it perceives to have fallen foul of its standards. The coins, CloakCoin (CLOAK), Modum (MOD), SALT (SALT), Substratum (SUB), and Wings (WINGS), will cease trading on February 22. Binance announced the removals on Friday, stating that the decision to delist came after an in-depth review on a number of factors, including:
- Commitment of team to project
- Level and quality of development activity
- Network / smart contract stability
- Level of public communication
- Responsiveness to our periodic due diligence requests
- Evidence of unethical / fraudulent conduct
- Contribution to a healthy and sustainable crypto ecosystem
Some Less of a Surprise than Others
Price action in relation to the coins was predictable, with an average 27% drop felt by the affected tokens. While the news came as a surprise with regard to some tokens, others had been feeling the heat for a while. Substratum has been recently embroiled in a saga involving missing ICO funds, day-trading what ICO funds were left and the censoring of dissenting voices. SALT meanwhile encountered problems in early 2018 when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) launched an investigation into practices surrounding its ICO. This was followed in July of that year by its CEO stepping down unexpectedly after months of social media inactivity.
Substratum Responds
Reactions to the news ranged from users being angry at Binance for suddenly reducing their portfolio value, while others hoped this was just the start of a wider cull. The latest delisting comes three months after four coins were axed in October 2018, none of which have recovered price-wise and one of which, Triggers, has shut down completely. This does not bode well for the coins set for delisting in a week’s time. The only project to respond to the delisting was Substratum, who’s CEO Justin Tabb posted a tweet that attempted to reassure holders:
We are looking into the @binance delisting as we were given no prior notice and no questions so we are trying to understand what the issue is and will report back once our messages are replied to. Thanks for your patience.
— Justin Tabb (@overridepro) February 15, 2019
What the fate of Substratum and the other delisted coins is remains to be seen, but given the fate of October’s removed coins, the odds don’t look good.
