Binance manipulates governance voting? This will be a more dangerous on-chain coup than any hacker attack

Author: Ice Frog

On April 8, 2025, Binance announced to the entire industry with a nearly obvious on-chain coup: Under the iron fist of capital, the governance mechanism of DeFi is simply vulnerable.

When Binance no longer plays the "industry promoter", instead nakedly tearing off the disguise and intervening in governance, it kills not just a project, but all confidence and trust in the future of Web3.

This is a governance attack, and it is also an ideal strangle.

This is a historical irony of "the decentralized beliefs are destroyed by centralized giants themselves."

1. Basic facts: a systematic cleaning triggered by a "reform proposal"

On April 8, 2025, PancakeSwap released the proposal "CAKE Token Economics 3.0", with the core content:

-Abolish veCAKE lock-up and voting mechanism;
-Emission distribution is controlled by the team;
-All governance powers will return to the hands of the central team.

In publicity, this is packaged as “simplification, deflation, optimization” but is essentially a liquidation cover for the ve model.

The most direct victim is Cakepie, a community DAO that locks up 12.8 million CAKEs for governance rights, fights for community users, and forms a check and balance force with PancakeSwap.

Behind this proposal, the traders also surfaced.

2. On-chain evidence: Binance's clearing address dominated the voting

On the eve of the proposal, a giant whale address on the chain that had been "retired" suddenly "resurrected":

Address: 0xd183f2bbf8b28d9fec8367cb06fe72b88778c86b

This address is the liquidation address used by Binance to take over hacker funds after the 2022 BNB Bridge attack.

Then:

1. Suddenly locked 25 million CAKEs and cast them into veCAKEs, becoming the largest voting player;

2. Lead the support proposal and can be unlocked immediately after it is passed, and no locking costs are borne;

3. Achieve a "zero cost power seizure and one-time harvest" governance blitzkrieg.

At the same time, Cakepie was directly cleared from its governance status, and the tens of millions of dollars of community value system returned to zero overnight.

If this is not manipulation, then what is it?

3. Is it Binance manipulation? The on-chain logic closed loop has given

the answer

Is this Binance manipulating? Let's break it down one by one:

1. The amount of funds is huge: 25 million CAKE + 36 million US dollars of stablecoins, which cannot be done by retail investors;

2. The address background is clear: Binance used for the wallet taken over by the black market in 2022, and the BNB Chain team proposed a governance proposal to give it whitelist permissions. Binance injected tens of millions of dollars into it for liquidation operations. In essence, this is an operation address jointly controlled by Binance and BNB.

3. Accurate operation time: lock the position before the proposal and unlock it immediately after the proposal is approved;

4. Clear benefits harvest: After the abolition of veCAKE, Emission returned to the official and affiliated parties; as we all know, Pancake is the largest DEX on BSC, and it is also the exclusive partner of Binance Wallet's various new issuance activities, and it is also an exclusive investment project by Binance.

5. Long-term beneficiaries suffer: Community DAOs such as Cakepie have lost all their voice and the interests of users are cleared.

All this points to not only "behind the scenes", but "before the scenes". This is a coup launched by Binance directly and launched on the chain.

4. Capital logic behind the governance attack: Whoever is not his own

person will be liquidated

This action is not complicated, its essential logic is only one sentence: whoever controls the Emission controls power; whoever threatens power must be dealt with.

When Cakepie controls more than half of veCAKE through the DAO model and begins to have the ability to influence PancakeSwap's incentive direction, allocation mechanism, and governance voting results, it becomes an "untolerable" variable in Binance's eyes.

not to mention:

1⃣veCAKE's bribery benefits have flowed into community projects such as Cakepie and Magpie, not Binance itself;

The long-term lockdown of the 2⃣ve mechanism makes it difficult for Binance's user CAKE to be used for governance and its power is lost;

3⃣PancakeSwap, as the absolute core DEX of the BSC ecosystem, is the most critical link in Binance's DeFi territory. Any penetration of non-direct forces poses a strategic risk.

So, it must be liquidated. It's not because it did something wrong, but because it did it too well and threatened the center of power.

This is not reform, it is the recycling of power. Binance came to the scene in person and ended the governance itself by "voting abolishing voting".

It's so awesome!

5. Revelation and accusation: This is a public humiliation of

decentralized beliefs

What Cakepie loses is the numbers and rights, and what the entire DeFi community loses is the system and confidence.

12.8 million veCAKE was invalidated overnight;
Tens of millions of dollars locked in the lockdown will be instantly returned to zero;
The CKP governance token model collapses and the community income model goes bankrupt;
The sense of value of users participating in DAO governance has been completely trampled on;
All "collaborative trust" built on protocol governance has become an illusion.

Today is Cakepie, and tomorrow may be any community project, any DAO, or any locked user on BSC.

As long as the governance system allows whales to "lock their positions with lightning + withdraw after investing", then the fate of the entire decentralized finance will always be in the hands of that invisible centralized wallet.

This time, there are no code vulnerabilities, no private key leakage, and no external attacks.

But it is more dangerous than any hacker attack: because it happens within the rules, in the name of "governance", but performs the reality of "cleaning".

6. Questioning and warning: Those who are good at swords will eventually

die under the sword, and liquidators will be liquidated.

We have to question Binance:

You once claimed that "decentralization is the future", but now you use centralized power to destroy it?

You once said, "Web3 is open, free, and equal." Now you are willing to use the hacker wallet you took over to announce: I can only decide who deserves power?

Do you want to change the financial system, or become the "absolute center" you once vowed to overthrow? Could it be that we all have to kneel down to accept the rule of the Binance Empire?

Are you able to ignore the bottom line, trample on the agreement because Web3 has no supervision, and carry out a power cleansing on the chain?

Decentralization is not a slogan in the white paper. It is an order, a promise, and now you have torn it with violence by yourself.

What I want to say in the end is that history tells us countless times that those who are good at swords will eventually die under the sword, and liquidators will be liquidated. They will not die from the enemy, but fall on the day when they tamper with the rules, betray trust, and trample on consensus. The knife never leaves, but it ultimately points to themselves.