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.

Updated Dec 18, 2024, 12:04 p.m. UTCPublished Dec 18, 2024, 11:52 a.m. UTC

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."

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 is an official Binance channel.

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.

Binance did not immediately respond to CoinDesk's request for comment.