Why do some cryptocurrencies get listed on Binance in a matter of days, while others wait for months. How will listing rules change in 2025

Adding cryptocurrencies to Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, is an important milestone for any crypto project. Developers often spend months negotiating listing and millions of dollars on related expenses, but there are cases when a project is listed within days of its creation.

In 2025, the process and results of listing on Binance and other major platforms drew criticism from experts, who noted a drop in the price of crypto assets by tens of percent immediately after trading began on the exchanges. Problems in the process of adding new crypto assets were also noted by the exchange executives themselves.

“We need to review the listing process at Coinbase, because right now there are about 1 million tokens being created per week, and that number continues to grow. It is no longer possible to evaluate each individual token separately,” wrote Brian Armstrong, CEO of the US crypto exchange Coinbase.

Although Binance co-founder Yi He has a slightly different view on listing new tokens on Binance. She noted that it is not only a process of analysis, but also a strategy to attract new users, as was the case with game tokens on Telegram. She also noted that lengthy project reviews can slow down their launch on the exchange.

Since there are no generally accepted market rules for listing, the process and conditions for adding a crypto asset to trading lists depend on the specific exchange. The example of Binance shows that the listing process has gone beyond the usual framework, with the platform offering four different options through which a crypto project can be listed on this exchange.

How to be listed on Binance

As of mid-May 2025, the Binance cryptocurrency exchange offers three different trading markets where crypto project assets can be listed. These include Binance Alpha, Binance Futures, and Binance Spot.

Binance Alpha — is a marketplace designed to discover promising early-stage crypto projects in the Web3 ecosystem with the potential to be listed on the main Binance exchange in the future.

Binance Futures — is the largest cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform by trading volume. Projects can enter this market after successful trading on Alpha, as well as directly, provided they meet all requirements.

Binance Spot — is the largest cryptocurrency spot trading platform by trading volume (approximately $23 billion in trading volume as of May 14, according to CoinMarcetCap, compared to its closest competitor, OKX, with approximately $5 billion), which allows users to directly buy, sell, and store crypto assets. 

At the end of April, Binance announced some requirements for listing on its main spot market — the exchange will only consider projects that have already been traded on Alpha or Futures. With a slight clarification that new tokens that have not been traded before and have not been released on the open market at all may also be admitted to the spot market.

These opportunities include mechanisms such as Launchpool, Megadrop, and airdrops for holders of BNB Chain (BNB) tokens, which are affiliated with the crypto asset exchange. These mechanisms are designed to help new projects enter the open market using Binance's infrastructure.

Binance Launchpool allows users to earn new project tokens for free by locking BNB and other tokens, such as stablecoins, on the exchange or an affiliated Web3 wallet.

Binance Megadrop also offers users the opportunity to lock their BNB by participating in the company's products or completing Web3 quests to earn bonus points, which will determine their proportional rewards in tokens.

As part of the airdrop program for BNB holders, the exchange also distributes rewards in the form of tokens based on user balances in BNB, rewarding holders with new project tokens that may be listed on Binance in the future.

Another mechanism is the ability to get listed through voting - Vote to List. This feature allows users to vote for projects they want to see on the exchange starting in early March. Projects with the most votes that pass Binance's review will be selected for listing.

The old way

At the beginning of the year, Binance avoided the topic of listing rules and procedures, and even the approximate description that exists today was not published, with the exception of local comments.

A telling example that goes beyond Binance's April statements on the listing process is the addition of the TST token to the spot trading platform at the beginning, when only about three days had passed between the token's creation and the start of trading. Now, given all the input, such tokens cannot enter the Binance spot market.

The change in publicity regarding the listing process came amid criticism from experts who noted a trend of token prices falling by up to 90% within a few months of trading on exchanges. At the time, Arthur Chong, founder of venture capital firm Defiance Capital, pointed out that if major industry players did not take steps to improve the situation, most of the market would remain unsuitable for investment in the foreseeable future. #Binance