BitMEX’ Arthur Hayes Blames Binance For Plagiarism, CZ Admits

Just recently Binance acquired a crypto-asset derivatives trading platform and announced that it intends to foray into the field of cryptocurrency futures, options, and other derivative products. Hence, one of the things that it had to settle was the auto-deleveraging section which governs counterparty liquidation. Looking at Binance’s official page, however, we can see that it is entirely copied from that of their competitor – BitMEX. 

Binance Rips Off BitMEX AD Page

A few days ago, Binance announced the so-called “Battle for Binance Futures,” launching two futures testnet platforms. Shortly after that, the exchange also acquired a crypto-asset derivatives platform in order to formulate a joint venture and foray into the field of cryptocurrency futures, options, and other derivatives. 

Amid all this, it appears that Binance had lost its sharp edge and created a separate page to explain how Auto Deleveraging (ADL) works. 

However, it’s interesting to see that the entire page is pretty much copy-pasted from the same page that Binance’s direct competitor in the field of crypto derivatives, BitMEX, has. 

Naturally, BitMEX was quick to pick this questionable, to say the least, move by Binance. 

Congrats on the Testnet Futures launches @binance. Glad to see you enjoyed reading our documentation as much as we enjoyed writing it! pic.twitter.com/lLzcLcX6t4

— BitMEX (@BitMEXdotcom) September 4, 2019

Indeed, looking at the page, it is copied word for word with a few short exceptions. Given that BitMEX is in direct competition with Binance in the cryptocurrency derivatives market, it’s very strange that the world’s leading exchange has allowed for a rather silly mistake of the kind. 

“Shame On Us” Zhao Says

Arthur Hayes, the CEO at BitMEX, staying entirely true to himself was quick to call out Changpeng Zhao, the CEO at Binance, saying that they can do better than that. 

Zhao’s response came rather swiftly. He said that the team missed this in the “DD process” prior to the acquisition and that they haven’t read the BitMEX documents on their own. 

Shame on us. ? Sorry about that. Missed this in the DD process before the acquisition (didn’t read the BitMex docs ourselves). Will fix/remove ASAP.

The official docs of Futures A platform (developed internally) are here: https://t.co/TPjvYgB2hr for your review.

— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) September 4, 2019

Needless to say, regardless of the reasons for the mistake, this doesn’t do Binance any good. It’s rather questionable why leading cryptocurrency exchange has allowed itself to rip off procedures of another one without adjusting them to their very own specifications.