On May 6, when CZ tweeted that renowned NFT whale and boop.fun founder dingaling was "a former Binance employee fired for insider trading" and a "fake CRO," the market was left confused amid the spectacle. This was because just about 6 hours before CZ sent out that tweet, Binance Alpha had just announced the listing of boop.fun's native token $BOOP and conducted an airdrop to users eligible for Alpha points.

Things seemed to settle down, yet also seemed far from over. Following CZ's "in-your-face" accusation, dingaling did not directly respond to CZ's scathing tweet, nor did he modify his Twitter bio. This could be seen as a form of "silent retaliation."

Why did CZ take this action? Why did dingaling choose not to engage directly? Let's unravel the mystery surrounding dingaling's identity and attempt to uncover potential 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 had already spent around $350,000 on NBA Top Shot NFTs. He became known for purchasing and collecting a substantial number of rare NBA Top Shot NFTs, and it could even be said that he was one of the earliest NFT whales to gain fame.

This is a Reddit post from 4 years ago, "Without whales like dingaling, NBA Top Shot would be no different from the trading cards our parents collected and kept from childhood."

During the subsequent NFT bull market, dingaling was revered by many NFT players for a reason. He was very generous when buying NFTs, and for illiquid NFTs, dingaling's purchases meant that many NFT players' orders were filled instantly.

Soon after, dingaling accepted a written interview from @OwnTheMomentNFT and revealed 2 personal details—I am in crypto and I am Australian.

1.5 years later, the topic of "Who is dingaling" officially exploded due to a tweet from @NFTethics. By this time, dingaling owned over 100 BAYC, 70 Azuki, and was the top bidder at 309 ETH in an Azuki Gold Skateboard auction.

The conclusion by @NFTehics was that dingaling is a "definite Binance executive" named Dinghua Xiao. Early on, the Twitter account @DinghuaXiao existed and some Binance-related tweets can still be found, showing interactions between Binance users and this account. In these interactions, one can even see @dingalingts, which is currently dingaling's Twitter handle.

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 of FTX.

In 2024, during the FTX bankruptcy-related litigation, Dinghua Xiao, CZ, and Samuel Wenjun Lim (mentioned in the document as Binance's compliance officer from 2018 to 2022) became defendants. They were accused of participating in a "fraudulent share buyback transaction" in 2021 and were listed as defendants for creating a run on false pretenses before the FTX collapse, facing multiple civil compensation and restitution demands.

Although in the legal documents, Dinghua Xiao is stated to have worked at Binance and its several subsidiaries from 2017 to September 2019, the time when he purchased West Realm Shires Inc shares was actually on February 28, 2020.

Just about 1 hour after a tweet from @NFTethics, dingaling retaliated on Twitter. He claimed to be an Australian and a former Binance employee, accusing @NFTethics of "baseless and wild doxing."

Interestingly, about half a month before @NFTethics' tweet, @maid_crypto mentioned dingaling's identity in a tweet as the "Pancake and LooksRare founder."

Nevertheless, dingaling's tenure as a Binance employee had long been unknown to most. Even after he updated his Twitter bio, sparking discussions, one of the biggest NFT KOLs, @waleswoosh, admitted that he was unaware of dingaling's past at Binance.

The Rise of CZ and the Silence of Dingaling

This might be where everyone is perplexed—why would CZ, who had already given the Binance Alpha, conducted an airdrop, still make such remarks about dingaling? And why did dingaling not respond as he did to @NFTethics 3 years ago?

CZ's behavior motivations may stem from two aspects, one being the potentially adverse impact dingaling's actions could have on Binance's compliance, and the other possibly involving some personal matters between him and dingaling.

For a long time, dingaling has not been able to say that he deliberately played down his former Binance background, but he has also almost never proactively 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 the Binance background, and even this background could have a negative impact. However, as the founder of boop.fun, this identity layer can be helpful in terms of marketing. You might ask, why wasn't it mentioned during the LooksRare era? That's because LooksRare at the time publicly stated that it had an anonymous team, while boop.fun is a "real-name startup."

Regarding the private matter between the two parties, CZ publicly stated that "dingaling was fired for insider trading," as this seemed to be a reason worthy of anger—it harmed the company. However, when looking at tweets in the English community, we may come across some interesting comments.

There are many stories between CZ and dingaling. All I can say is, if CZ speaks ill of dingaling, I wouldn't be surprised because this isn't the first time CZ has screwed dingaling over. Everyone knows what CZ did to the PancakeSwap founders

In theory, CZ is correct. dingaling's position was that of a research leader (essentially the CRO), and indeed, he was investigated and fined millions of dollars for "insider trading." The insider trading scenario was that dingaling bought a bunch of $CAKE for himself, but his request to CZ for a share of PancakeSwap's earnings caused CZ and Ted Lin (former Binance CMO) to be furious

dingaling's lack of retaliation is because as a project leader, he needs Binance to make his project more successful.

He actually fought back as well by not changing his Twitter bio, which is a silent retaliation.

Grudges, right and wrong, can only be fully understood by the parties involved. I hope this article, which summarizes the "Grudges of the Coin Circle," can give all readers a good gossiping experience.

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