On May 6, when CZ tweeted that the well-known NFT whale and boop.fun founder dingaling was "a former employee expelled from Binance for insider trading" and "fake CRO," the market was left confused in shock. This was because, just about 6 hours before CZ's tweet, Binance Alpha had announced the launch of the boop.fun platform token $BOOP and had airdropped it to users who met the Alpha points criteria.
It seemed like the matter was over, but it also seemed like it wasn't. After being publicly called out by CZ, dingaling did not respond to CZ's harsh tweet, nor did he change his Twitter bio. This can be seen as a form of "silent retaliation."
Why did CZ do this? And why did dingaling not retaliate directly? Let's start by reviewing the mystery of dingaling's identity to try to find possible answers to these questions.
Who is dingaling?
On April 8, 2021, @OwnTheMomentNFT posted a "missing person" notice on Twitter—who is dingaling?
In just the first week of April 2021, dingaling spent about $350,000 on NBA Top Shot NFTs. He became famous for purchasing and collecting a large number of rare NBA Top Shot NFTs, and it can even be said that he might be one of the earliest well-known NFT whales.
This is a Reddit post from 4 years ago, "Without whales like dingaling, NBA Top Shot is no different from the cards our parents collected and kept from childhood."
One of the reasons dingaling was revered by many NFT players during the subsequent NFT bull market was precisely this. He was very generous when purchasing NFTs, and for illiquid NFTs, dingaling's buy-in meant that many NFT players' orders could be filled instantly.
Soon, dingaling accepted a written interview from @OwnTheMomentNFT and revealed two pieces of personal information—he is from the crypto space and is Australian.
A year and a half later, the topic of "who is dingaling" was officially ignited by a tweet from @NFTethics. By this time, dingaling had already owned over 100 BAYC, 70 Azuki, and was the top bidder at the Azuki gold skateboard auction with a bid of 309 ETH.
The conclusion from @NFTethics was that dingaling is "an absolute senior executive at Binance" named Dinghua Xiao. In the early days, the Twitter account @DinghuaXiao existed and could still be found in some Binance-related tweets, where Binance users interacted with that account. In these interactions, the current Twitter handle of dingaling, @dingalingts, can even be seen.
If dingaling is indeed Dinghua Xiao, then he is not only a senior executive at Binance but also a shareholder in West Realm Shires Inc, a joint venture entity co-founded by CZ and SBF.
In 2024, in the related lawsuits of the FTX bankruptcy case, Dinghua Xiao, along with CZ and Samuel Wenjun Lim (who served as Binance's compliance officer from 2018 to 2022), became defendants. They were accused of participating in "fraudulent share buyback transactions" in 2021 and creating a run on effect through false statements before the collapse of FTX, facing multiple civil compensation and restitution claims.
Although the lawsuit documents state that Dinghua Xiao worked at Binance and its subsidiaries from 2017 to September 2019, the time of purchasing shares in West Realm Shires Inc was on February 28, 2020.
About an hour after @NFTethics's tweet, dingaling responded on Twitter. He stated that he is Australian and a former Binance employee, accusing @NFTethics of "groundless and random speculation and doxxing."
In fact, half a month before @NFTethics's tweet, @maid_crypto had already mentioned dingaling's identity in a tweet, referring to him as "the founder of Pancake and LooksRare."
Despite this, dingaling's background as a former Binance employee was not known to most people for a long time. After he changed his Twitter bio and sparked discussions, even one of the biggest NFT KOLs, @waleswoosh, stated that he was unaware of dingaling's previous Binance history.
CZ's Outburst and dingaling's Silence
This may be where everyone feels confused—why did CZ still say this about dingaling after Binance Alpha had already been launched and the airdrop had been distributed? Why did dingaling not retaliate like he did three years ago against @NFTethics?
CZ's motivation for his actions may stem from two aspects: one is the potential negative impact of dingaling's actions on Binance's compliance, and the other may involve some personal matters between him and dingaling.
For a long time, it cannot be said that dingaling deliberately downplayed his previous Binance background, but he also almost never mentioned it proactively. Shortly before the launch of boop.fun, he changed his Twitter bio to "Building boop.fun, former Binance CRO and PancakeSwap founder."
As an NFT whale, dingaling does not need the Binance background, and this background could even have negative implications. However, as the founder of boop.fun, this identity could help in marketing. You might ask why it wasn't mentioned during the LooksRare period? Because LooksRare publicly stated that it was an anonymous team, while boop.fun is "entrepreneurship under real names."
Regarding the personal matters between the two, CZ's public statement is that "dingaling was expelled for insider trading," which seems to be a reason worth being angry about—causing harm to the company. However, when reviewing tweets in the English-speaking community, we see some interesting comments.
There are many stories between CZ and dingaling. I can only say that if CZ speaks ill of dingaling, I wouldn't be surprised because this isn't the first time dingaling has been let down by CZ. Everyone knows what CZ did to the founders of PancakeSwap.
Theoretically, CZ is right. dingaling's position was research leader (effectively CRO), and he was indeed investigated and faced million-dollar fines for "insider trading." The situation of this "insider trading" was that dingaling bought a bunch of $CAKE but requested a share of PancakeSwap's profits, which angered CZ and Ted Lin (former Binance CGO).
Dingaling's lack of response is because, as a project party, he needs Binance to make his project more successful.
In fact, he did respond; not changing his Twitter bio is a form of silent retaliation.
The entanglements and disputes can only be fully known by the parties involved. I hope this article's sorting of the "entanglements in the crypto world" provides a good experience for the readers.
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