On May 6, when CZ tweeted that the well-known NFT whale and boop.fun founder Dingaling was 'a former employee fired by Binance for insider trading' and a 'fake CRO', the market felt confused in shock while eating melons. Just about 6 hours before CZ's tweet, Binance Alpha had announced the launch of the boop.fun platform token $BOOP and airdropped it to users who met the Alpha points criteria.
It seems that the matter is over, yet it also seems not to be. After CZ's 'face-to-face attack,' Dingaling did not respond to CZ's ruthless tweet, but he also did not change his Twitter bio. This can be seen as a form of 'silent rebuttal.'
Why did CZ do this? Why did Dingaling not retaliate directly? Let's start from reviewing the mystery of Dingaling's identity and 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 the earliest known NFT whale.
This is a 4-year-old Reddit post, 'Without whales like Dingaling, NBA Top Shot and the cards our parents collected and kept from childhood are no different.'
One reason Dingaling is admired by many NFT players in the subsequent NFT bull market is precisely this. He is very generous when purchasing NFTs, and for NFTs with poor liquidity, Dingaling's buying means that many NFT players' orders can be filled in an instant.
Soon, Dingaling accepted a written interview from @OwnTheMomentNFT and revealed two personal pieces of information - that he is a person from the crypto circle and an Australian.
A year and a half later, the topic of 'Who is Dingaling' officially exploded due to a tweet from @NFTethics. At this point, Dingaling already owned over 100 BAYC and 70 Azuki, and was the highest bidder with 309 ETH in the Azuki gold skateboard auction.
@NFTehics concluded that Dingaling is a 'high-ranking Binance executive' named Dinghua Xiao. In the early days, the Twitter account @DinghuaXiao existed and could still be found in some Binance-related tweets, indicating interactions between Binance users and this account. In these interactions, one could even see the current Twitter handle of Dingaling, @dingalingts.
If Dingaling is indeed Dinghua Xiao, then he is not only a Binance executive but also a shareholder of West Realm Shires Inc., a joint venture entity established by CZ and SBF.
In 2024, in connection with 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 prior to the collapse of FTX, facing multiple civil compensation and return demands.
Although in the lawsuit documents, 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 was posted, Dingaling retaliated on Twitter. He stated that he is an Australian and a former Binance employee, accusing @NFTethics of being 'groundless and randomly speculating and doxxing.'
In fact, a month and a half before the launch of @NFTethics, @maid_crypto mentioned Dingaling's identity in a tweet, referring to him as 'the founder of Pancake and LooksRare.'
Nonetheless, for a long time, Dingaling's background as a former Binance employee was not known to most people. After he modified his Twitter bio and sparked discussions, even one of the biggest NFT KOLs @waleswoosh stated that he was unaware of Dingaling's previous Binance background.
CZ's outburst and Dingaling's silence.
This might be where everyone feels confused - why did CZ still say this about Dingaling after Binance Alpha had already launched and airdropped? Why didn't Dingaling respond like he did three years ago to @NFTethics?
CZ's motives might stem from two aspects: one is that Dingaling's actions might have negative impacts on Binance's compliance, and the other could be some personal matters between him and Dingaling.
For a long time, it cannot be said that Dingaling deliberately downplays his former Binance background, but he has almost never actively mentioned it. 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 Binance's background, and this background might even have negative effects. However, as the founder of boop.fun, this identity can help with marketing. You might ask, why was it not mentioned during the LooksRare period? Because LooksRare stated at that time that it was an anonymous team, whereas boop.fun was 'real-name entrepreneurship.'
Regarding their personal matters, CZ's public statement is that 'Dingaling was fired for insider trading,' which seems to be a reason worth being angry about - it caused harm to the company. However, when reviewing tweets in the English-speaking community, we can 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 PancakeSwap founders.
Theoretically, CZ is right. Dingaling's position was research leader (de facto CRO) and indeed faced investigation and suffered million-dollar fines due to 'insider trading.' The situation of 'insider trading' is that Dingaling bought a bunch of $CAKE but demanded 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 rebuttal.
The entanglements and disputes can only be fully known by the parties involved. I hope this article's sorting of the 'entangled tales of the crypto circle' can provide a good experience for the readers.