(Isstories Editorial):- Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R. Nov 17, 2025 (Issuewire.com) – On November 7, 2025, Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky — winner of Binance’s “The BLOCKCHAIN 100” Independent Researcher award — posted a simple tweet declining his invitation to the Dubai award ceremony. Within 24 hours, the post exploded to 1 million views. Today, it has surpassed 2.4 million views, yet Binance remains silent.
What could make a respected academic researcher publicly reject recognition from the world’s largest crypto exchange? The answer reveals a deeper tension between crypto’s cypherpunk origins and its commercial reality.
The Unexpected Winner
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Hosted by Binance Square, the Blockchain 100 Award was an event to honor innovative and educational creators in the crypto industry. From September 25 to November 12, the Nomination Portal was open to the community, allowing anyone to nominate eligible candidates. The voting stage then began on November 22 and lasted for eight days. After an intense round of competition, Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky emerged as the winner with 9,717 votes, finishing more than 1,000 votes ahead of the runner-up. Michael Sutton, lead engineer and researcher at Kaspa, secured the Second Runner-Up position in the Industry Advocate category with 7,142 votes.
Neither Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky nor Michael Sutton campaigned for themselves; they were not even aware of the contest. The nominations and votes came from the Kaspa community — a grassroots mobilization that demonstrated the project’s organic support. The enthusiastic community members call for voting for the two Kaspa figures across multiple channels on a daily basis.
The Polite Rejection
While most winners on the list are celebrating, Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky politely declined the invitation to the awarding ceremony as a part of the Binance Blockchain Week scheduled on Dec. 3, in Coca-cola Arena Dubai.
Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky is the originator of Kaspa ($KAS), a decentralized PoW network that achieves scalable Nakamoto consensus. The network was initialized in Nov 2021, and Binance listed $KAS futures on November 17th, 2023. Nevertheless, till today, Binance has not yet listed $KAS spot. Recently, the Kaspa community rep disclosed that BN requested for 3% of $KAS’s total supply, roughly $40 million at current valuations, as chargeable fees prior to the listing process.
Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky referenced @0xMert_’s crypto asset classification that divides cryptocurrencies into three categories: commercial, casino, and cypherpunk; he indicated that Kaspa, falling into category III as a hardcore cypherpunk project of innovation, should be free of the listing fees, although those might be legit for “house-friendly casino[s].” In addition, Dr.Yonatan Sompolinsk pointed out that as a fair launched project where the only possible way of gaining the coin is through mining, Binance’s requirement of 3% is simply not feasible.
Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky criticized Binance for placing $PEPE at the top of the Binance.US innovation zone with the question:” What’s the thesis for the frog?” He also mildly criticized Binance’s October 11 crash and its complicity towards the dominance of the casino culture formed in the crypto industry, if Binance is not the culprit itself.
Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky acknowledged the passion and support of the community. As of today, the original post (Link) has garnered over 2,000,000 views and has become the trending #crypto topic on X several times. The influence has grown out of Kaspa vs. Binance; other crypto influencers, such as @MHiesboeck, the Head of Research of Uphold, and @cecilia_hsueh, the CSO of MEXC, have reposted and shown support.
The Silence Speaks Volumes
Binance has yet to make a public response to Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky’s 2,400,000-view viral post. This silence is particularly notable given the post’s widespread reach and the direct nature of its critique.
On October 11, 2025, during a massive crypto flash crash, Binance came under heavy criticism as over $19billion in leveraged positions were liquidated in the market, and over $2.3bn in positions were liquidated in Binance. The exchange was accused of exacerbating the volatility and withdrawing liquidity, drawing widespread backlash from traders and the crypto community.
Following that, Binance was accused by the Aster community over discrepancies in the $ASTER airdrop and by the GIGGLE community due to the disconnect between its listing and donation commitments. These incidents reflect Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky’s critique of Binance: as the largest CEX, the exchange should take responsibility for shaping and safeguarding the industry, yet in practice, it has transformed crypto from a euphoric cypherpunk vision into a house’friendly casino.
Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky urged the industry to rediscover its roots: building technologies with purpose, not speculation. As the crypto world watches this unprecedented situation unfold, one question remains: In an industry increasingly driven by commercial interests, is there still room for the cypherpunk dream? Yet as speculative bubbles fade, attention naturally returns to projects grounded in genuine technological progress. Despite negative sentiment and familiar “crypto is dead” narratives, Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky’s response reminds us that the cypherpunk spirit persists — also quietly, but persistently.
Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky’s rejection letter has stirred outrage across the Kaspa community, sparking campaigns such as #ByeNance, #BoycottBinance, and #DeleteYourAccount, which encourages users to close their Binance accounts and move to alternative platforms.
What is Kaspa, and Who is Dr. Yonatan Sompolinsky?
Kaspa emerged in 2021 as the first Proof-of-Work Layer 1 blockchain built on DAG architecture. Using the innovative GhostDAG protocol, Kaspa achieves high scalability and throughput while maintaining Bitcoin-level security and decentralization.
To date, $KAS has been listed on major CEXs such as Kraken, WhiteBIT, Bybit, Bitget, and MEXC. In June 2027, $KAS reached its all-time high (ATH) of $0.196, with a market capitalization of $4.77 billion. As of today, its market cap stands at $1.39 billion, still over 200 times higher than its initial value, ranking it #20 among Layer-1 chains
Dr.Yonatan Sompolinsky is known as a scholar and researcher of repute; he proposed the application of Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) models in 2013. His work has been cited and implemented by other based Layers such as APTOS and SUI. The GHOST theory was frequently cited by Vitalik in ETH’s PoW ages; Vitalik considered employing the uncle block mechanism to improve security and decentralization by rewarding valid but non-main-chain blocks, though it was ultimately not implemented as Ethereum transitioned to PoS.
Sticking to the Nakamoto ethos, Kaspa has brought together a global community of cypherpunk enthusiasts who share a belief in decentralization and open innovation. To further expand Kaspa’s worldwide influence, the Kaspa Foundation, a dedicated organization driving the ecosystem’s growth, has hosted and sponsored community events across more than 10 countries, spreading awareness and strengthening global connections.
This rejection email from Dr.Yonatan Sompolinsky also brought Kaspa to a broader public — it also reminds the industry that it’s time to think back to crypto’s initial vision and, more importantly, on what truly holds value.
This article was originally published by IssueWire. Read the original article here.
