Binance has shut down over 600 user accounts due to exploitative activities on its Binance Alpha platform through coordinated bot usage.
On October 19, Binance announced that the targeted accounts were found utilizing “bot farms” to manipulate Alpha’s reward system.
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Binance Alpha Sees Heavy Bots Activity
Binance Alpha aims to highlight early-stage Web3 projects and provides users with pre-listing exposure to promising tokens.
This year, the platform has seen substantial success, with trading volumes exceeding $115 billion.
However, this success has attracted abuse from certain community members.
Reports indicate that some users deployed bots to mass-farm Alpha points, which govern access to token sales and airdrops. This automation allowed a select few to dominate allocations intended for fair distribution.
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For context, blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps previously identified similar issues on ChainOpera, a prominent BNB Chain project.
The firm discovered that one coordinated group allegedly controlled half of the top-earning wallets, generating approximately $13 million through synchronized trades.
Binance Introduces Whistleblower System
In response, Binance stated it has enhanced its monitoring tools and feedback channels to more effectively identify and combat such behavior.
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The new system enables users to report suspicious accounts and, if verified, receive up to 50% of any recovered funds. To qualify for review, these reports must include verifiable data such as screenshots, wallet details, or IP addresses.
While the initiative aims to promote fairness, it has raised concerns among some users. Critics argue that it risks transforming Binance’s ecosystem from a social farming model into one characterized by surveillance and distrust.
“[It is] one thing to ban users abusing the ecosystem, another is to create a snitching machine within your own platform. The nature of the ban already shows you’re turning the model from social farming to monitored farming and farming under surveillance,” crypto analyst Demiter said.
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Meanwhile, the sentiment echoes broader concerns that Binance’s enforcement model could shift from open collaboration to stringent oversight.
“Binance is doing what they have to, but if they go too far with this, it’ll start to look like a police state instead of a community program,” the analyst added.
Still, the exchange emphasized that accounts found in violation of its Terms of Use risk permanent suspension and forfeiture of airdrop rewards.
As the renewed enforcement effort unfolds, it comes amid user frustration over recent technical issues that froze accounts and caused flash crashes across several trading pairs.
Thus, Binance’s latest move indicates an attempt to restore user trust by prioritizing integrity and transparency in how its community gains early access to crypto projects.
