Binance, on December 7, 2025, put a hold on one of its employees who was allegedly involved in an insider trading situation connected to the launch of the "Year of Yellow Fruit" memecoin.

The insider scheme

The token was officially launched on-chain at 05:29 UTC. Within less than a minute, the employee was already posting hype material, copy and images, from the @BinanceFutures X account, which looked like an endorsement. This led to a pump from $0.000023 to $0.0006, thus the project reaching a $5M market cap with 2,300 holders and $278K liquidity. One wallet, which is linked, made $55,600 in profits.

AI bots facilitated the rapid climb; however, Binance stated that there was no official listing or involvement. This is the second case in 2025; a staffer in a March episode was found to have run a token sale ahead of the market for a $113K profit.

Swift backlash

The Binance audit team moved on the spot after whistleblower tips. They confirmed violations of company policies and the employee’s abuse of position. The employee is going to be sued in their local court.

Five verified tipsters through official channels (not public X posts) were given a $100K reward, divided among them. Former CEO CZ advised sending reports through the proper channels. The token price went up even more after the announcement.

The mishaps at the industry level are causing people to question the trustworthiness of exchanges in the post-Zhao era. The situation is escalating the demand for more rigorous internal controls.