On May 6, when CZ posted a tweet stating that the well-known NFT whale and founder of boop.fun, dingaling, was "a former employee of Binance who was fired for insider trading" and "a fake CRO," the market was confused by the shocking gossip. Because, just about six hours before CZ made this tweet, Binance Alpha had just announced the listing of the $BOOP token on the boop.fun platform and conducted airdrops to users who met the Alpha score requirements.

It seemed like the matter had ended, but it also seemed not to have ended. After being "called out" by CZ, dingaling did not respond to CZ's unrelenting tweet, but he also did not change his Twitter bio. This can be seen as a "silent retaliation."

Why did CZ do this? Why didn't dingaling respond directly? Let's start by reviewing the mystery of dingaling's identity to try to find possible answers to these questions.

Who is dingaling?

On April 8, 2021, @OwnTheMomentNFT posted a "missing person" notice on Twitter - who is dingaling?

Within just the first week of April 2021, dingaling spent approximately $350,000 on NBA Top Shot NFTs. He became famous for purchasing and collecting a large number of rare NBA Top Shot NFTs, and it could be said that he was one of the earliest known NFT whales.

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

One of the reasons why dingaling was praised by many NFT players during the subsequent NFT bull run was exactly this. When buying NFTs, he was very generous, and for illiquid NFTs, dingaling's purchase meant that many NFT players' orders were executed instantly.

Soon after, dingaling accepted a written interview with @OwnTheMomentNFT and revealed two pieces of personal information - I am a crypto person and an Australian.

One and a half years later, the topic of "who is dingaling" was officially sparked by a tweet from @NFTethics. At this time, dingaling already had over 100 BAYC, 70 Azuki, and was the highest bidder at the Azuki gold skateboard auction with 309 ETH.

@NFTethics concluded that dingaling was a "senior Binance employee" named Dinghua Xiao. In the early days, the Twitter account @DinghuaXiao existed and some tweets related to Binance can still be searched, with interactions between Binance users and this account. In these interactions, even @dingalingts, the current Twitter handle of dingaling, can be seen.

If dingaling is indeed Dinghua Xiao, then he is not only a senior Binance employee, but also a shareholder of West Realm Shires Inc, a joint venture entity co-founded by CZ and SBF.

In 2024, in the related lawsuits of the FTX bankruptcy case, Dinghua Xiao, CZ, and Samuel Wenjun Lim (Lin Wenjun, mentioned in the documents as the compliance officer of Binance from 2018 to 2022) were jointly listed as defendants. They were accused of participating in "fraudulent share repurchase transactions" in 2021 and creating a run through false statements before the collapse of FTX, and were subject to multiple civil compensation and restitution claims.

Although in the litigation documents, Dinghua Xiao worked at Binance and its subsidiaries from 2017 to September 2019, the time he purchased shares in West Realm Shires Inc was February 28, 2020.

Approximately one hour after @NFTethics' tweet, dingaling responded on Twitter. He stated that he is an Australian and a former Binance employee, and accused @NFTethics of "baseless and wild internet sleuthing."

In fact, a month before @NFTethics' tweet appeared, @maid_crypto mentioned dingaling's identity in a tweet, saying "founder of Pancake and LooksRare."

Despite this, for a long time, the fact that dingaling had once been a Binance employee was not widely known. After he modified his Twitter bio and sparked discussion, even one of the biggest NFT KOLs, @waleswoosh, admitted that he was unaware of dingaling's previous Binance experience.

CZ's Outburst and dingaling's Silence

This might be the confusing part for everyone - why did CZ say this about dingaling even though they had already listed on Binance Alpha and sent airdrops? Why didn't dingaling respond like he did three years ago against @NFTethics?

CZ's motivation may come from two aspects: one is the potential negative impact of dingaling's actions on Binance's compliance, and the other is some private matters between him and dingaling.

For a long time, it cannot be said that dingaling deliberately downplayed his past Binance background, but he rarely mentioned it actively. Shortly before the launch of boop.fun, he changed his Twitter bio to "building boop.fun, former Binance CRO and founder of PancakeSwap."

As an NFT whale, dingaling does not need the Binance background, and this background may even cause negative effects. But as the founder of boop.fun, this identity can help in marketing. You might say, why didn't he mention it during the LooksRare period? Because LooksRare publicly declared an anonymous team, while boop.fun is a "real-name startup."

Regarding the private matters, CZ's public statement is that "dingaling was fired for insider trading," which seems like a reason worth getting angry about - causing harm to the company. However, when looking at English-speaking tweets, we can see some interesting comments.

There are many stories between CZ and dingaling. I can only say that if CZ speaks badly of dingaling, I won't be surprised, because this is not the first time dingaling has been taken advantage of by CZ. Everyone knows what CZ did to the founders of PancakeSwap.

In theory, CZ is right. dingaling's position was a research leader (de facto CRO), and he was indeed investigated and fined millions of dollars for "insider trading." The situation of "insider trading" was that dingaling bought a lot of $CAKE himself, but requested a share of PancakeSwap's earnings from CZ, which caused CZ and Ted Lin (former Binance CGO) to become angry.

dingaling's silence is because as a project founder, he needs Binance to make his project more successful.

Actually, he did retaliate; not changing his Twitter bio is a form of silent retaliation.

Good and bad, right and wrong, only the parties involved know everything. Hopefully, this article can provide you with a good experience of watching the gossip in the crypto world.