Polygon Foundation Refutes Claims Of Dumping MATIC On Binance – Here’s What Happened

Blockchain analytics site Lookonchain flagged recent transactions of two on-chain addresses allegedly owned by the Polygon Foundation. The platform reported that one of these wallet addresses had transferred large amounts of MATIC – the Polygon network’s native token – to Binance in the past two days.

According to Lookonchain, the two addresses, tagged as  “Polygon Foundation: 0x8d36” and “Polygon Foundation: 0xf957,” have collectively transferred nearly $6 million worth of MATIC to Binance over the past month, with more than half of the amount deposited onto the exchange in the last two days.

In an X post, Polygon Labs founder Sandeep Nailwal swiftly refuted the suggestions that the Polygon Foundation may be dumping MATIC tokens on Binance. The founder asserted it was “another” case of incorrectly labeling wallet addresses.

Nailwal emphasized the need to exercise caution before publishing claims of this nature, as they can create FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) in the crypto community.

For context, FUD refers to the spread of negative – and sometimes false – information about a cryptocurrency or the general market to create fear and doubt among investors and potentially influence prices. 

It is worth mentioning that the founder’s claims align with the words of Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron, who was the first to raise this issue of wallet mislabeling. Boiron had also insisted that the Polygon Foundation controls none of the addresses. 

In response to Boiron, Lookonchain stated that the crypto intelligence platform Nansen conducted the address labeling.

Nansen responded to the situation, explaining why the two wallets were linked to the Polygon Foundation. Meanwhile, the analytics firm put in a robust defense for its address labeling system, claiming that every label undergoes a “rigorous documentation process.”

Going further in its explanation, Nansen cited some instances where prominent figures at Polygon Labs interacted with the “Polygon Foundation: 0x8d36” address. In one example, Polygon’s head of growth, Sanket Shah, reportedly sent ETH to the address for “gas purposes.”

For the second address, “Polygon Foundation: 0xf957”, Nansen said its counterparties consist of the first address and other entities closely associated with Polygon, including the head of investments, Shreyansh Singh.

Nansen concluded that:

The evidence for both of these addresses shows a very strong link to various individuals and entities of the Polygon Foundation, and that’s why we labeled these addresses as part of the Polygon Foundation.

Despite this, Nansen claims to have removed the labels “as a gesture of goodwill” since the Polygon Labs CEO openly denied links to the two addresses.