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Binance has shut down more than 600 user accounts for exploiting its Binance Alpha platform through coordinated bot activity.
In an October 19 announcement, Binance revealed that the targeted accounts were discovered using the “bot farms” to manipulate Alpha’s reward structure.
Binance Alpha is designed to spotlight early-stage Web3 projects and give users pre-listing exposure to promising tokens.
As a result, the platform has enjoyed significant success this year, with its trading volumes surpassing $115 billion.
However, that success has attracted abuse from some community members.
Some users reportedly deployed bots to mass-farm Alpha points, a mechanism that determines access to token sales and airdrops. This automation allowed a few actors to dominate allocations meant to be distributed more evenly.
For context, blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps previously uncovered similar patterns on ChainOpera, a major BNB Chain project.
The firm found that one coordinated group allegedly controlled half of the top-earning wallets, generating about $13 million through synchronized trades.
In response, Binance said it has upgraded its monitoring tools and feedback channels to identify and curb such behavior more effectively.
The new system allows users to flag suspicious accounts and, if verified, receive up to 50% of any recovered funds. To qualify for review, these reports must include verifiable data such as screenshots, wallet details, or IP addresses.
While the measure aims to promote fairness, it has stirred discomfort among some users. Critics argue that it risks turning Binance’s ecosystem from a social farming model into one defined by surveillance and distrust.
"[It is] one thing to ban users abusing the ecosystem, another is to create a snitching machine within your own platform The nature of the ban already shows you're turning the model from social farming, to monitored farming and farming under surveillance," crypto analyst Demiter said.
Meanwhile, the sentiment reflects broader concerns that Binance’s enforcement model could evolve from open collaboration to heavy oversight.
"Binance is doing what they have to, but if they go too far with this, it’ll start to look like a police state instead of a community program," the analyst added.
Still, the exchange maintained that accounts found violating its Terms of Use risk permanent suspension and loss of airdrop rewards.
Meanwhile, the renewed enforcement comes amid user frustration over recent technical disruptions that froze accounts and caused flash crashes across several trading pairs.
Therefore, Binance’s latest move signals an attempt to rebuild user trust by prioritizing integrity and transparency in how its community gains early access to crypto projects.
