Bybit Faces Leadership Shakeup After Notcoin Listing Controversy: Report

Bybit is reportedly facing an internal leadership shakeup following a controversial incident involving the listing of Notcoin (NOT).

Several executives have reportedly “voluntarily resigned” after the incident, and the exchange is now publicly recruiting new technical and spot managers.

The Notcoin Delayed Balances Incident

During the listing of NOT, an issue arose when not all users received their airdrop of tokens before trading started. This delay disadvantaged them compared to those with access to the free tokens. The trading price on Bybit was subsequently much lower than on other exchanges.

Exclusive: After the Notcoin delayed deposit incident, several executives of Bybit, the third largest offshore exchange, “voluntarily resigned” and publicly recruited new technical and spot managers, according to an internal letter to all employees. pic.twitter.com/CiUQyrAl4e

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) May 31, 2024

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou quickly acknowledged the issue, explaining in a post just hours before trading started that the exchange’s wallet had been overwhelmed by a large volume of transactions.

“Bybit team is working very hard to solve the Notcoin airdrop balance reflection issue,” Zhou wrote in an X post on May 16. He detailed that Bybit’s wallet had received around 370,000 on-chain transactions from Notcoin, a process that took longer than anticipated to reflect in individual user balances.

To mitigate the issue, Bybit attempted manual user credits before the market opened. Zhou admitted that despite these efforts, only 70% of eligible users had been credited in time. He apologized for the oversight and promised a compensation plan for the 320,000 users affected by abnormal NOT account balances on the debut day.

The Compensation Plan

Two weeks ago, according to Ben Zhou, the compensation plan for affected Bybit users included a 30 MNT airdrop, a $50 trading bonus, and a three-month VIP +1 upgrade. VIP users would receive an additional bonus of up to $500, depending on their VIP tier. The total compensation, amounting to approximately $26 million, was to be processed within three working days, and confirmation emails sent to users.

Notcoin’s trading on Bybit saw significantly lower prices than other exchanges like Binance and Bitget, where the token opened at much higher levels. One user pointed out that Bybit listed Notcoin at $0.0007, while Binance and Bitget listed it at $0.01, and other platforms saw the token reach as high as $0.035.

Notcoin started as a Telegram Mini App, allowing users to play and mine the in-game currency directly within the messaging platform that gained more than 35 million users. This success caught the eye of major crypto exchanges, leading to planned listings on Binance, OKX, Bybit, and others.

Notcoin

Binance OKX Bybit
Kucoin Gate Bitget
Bitfinex and others

Trading opens May, 16

6:00 San Francisco
9:00 New York
12:00 UTC
13:00 London
14:00 Prague
15:00 Kyiv/Moscow
15:30 Tehran
16:00 Dubai
17:00 Tashkent/Orenburg
17:30 Delhi
20:00 Hong Kong
21:00 Kyoto pic.twitter.com/X1wDkXYNTJ

— Notcoin Ø (@thenotcoin) May 15, 2024

On May 16, Notcoin began trading on these exchanges across multiple time zones. The launch was marked by an airdrop of over 80 billion NOT tokens to early adopters who had mined the in-game currency and linked a TON wallet.

According to data from Coingecko, Notcoin (NOT) is presently trading at $0.01195, marking a 152.6% increase over the past week. Yesterday, it hit a new all-time high of $0.01211, with its market capitalization reaching $1.2 billion for the first time.