CoinUp’s CPX Token Crashes After Yi He Fraud Accusation, Exchange Silent on Seller

Published by James Harris on June 25, 2026June 25, 2026

When Binance co-founder Yi He publicly accused someone named Zhu Pan of impersonating her to scam Justin Sun, the collateral damage landed on a smaller exchange called CoinUp. Its native token CPX saw a sharp selloff almost immediately, and users began asking the obvious question: how close is this person to the platform itself?

CoinUp’s answer is that Zhu Pan is not part of its team and has no role in its operations or management, describing him instead as affiliated with a project that happens to be listed on the exchange. That distinction matters, but it also has limits. Smaller exchanges have faced this exact pattern before, where a peripheral association with a fraud allegation is enough to trigger a concentrated selling episode that the platform cannot easily reverse. The dynamic is familiar from 2022 and 2023, when a single credible accusation posted by a high-profile figure, amplified by Sun or someone of comparable reach, was enough to drain liquidity from a token before any facts were established. Yi He and Sun together carry the kind of social weight that makes a denial almost irrelevant in the first hours.

CoinUp says it found no evidence of a hack, data breach, or system exploit, and states that deposits, withdrawals, and trading continued normally throughout. That is the floor, not the ceiling.

The harder problem is what CoinUp has not said. As of June 25, the exchange had not identified who was behind the concentrated selling or explained what actually caused the price drop, leaving CPX holders choosing between panic, patience, or exit. Founder Queenie Li posted directly to users on June 24 and the platform announced an X Space for June 25 to address concerns, but transparency pledges issued mid-crisis carry less weight when the underlying investigation has no published timeline. For a platform trying to separate itself from a fraud allegation, the gap between “our systems are fine” and “here is what happened to the price” is exactly where user trust erodes.

The broader issue is that smaller exchanges with native tokens carry a structural vulnerability that larger platforms do not. A reputational shock to Binance does not crater BNB in the same way because institutional depth absorbs it. For CPX, retail sentiment and a thin order book do most of the work, which means a single viral post from the right account can move price faster than any operational response can follow.

CoinUp said the June 25 X Space would address both user concerns and the employment issues at the center of the controversy, suggesting there are personnel questions still unresolved. Whether that conversation changes anything for CPX holders depends almost entirely on whether the exchange can name what happened, not just what did not.