On March 9, Binance took action against a market maker handling GoPlus Security (GPS) and MyShell (SHELL) tokens after uncovering some shady activity. The platform found evidence of order and liquidity manipulation, which led to an immediate ban for the market maker. On top of that, Binance confiscated the market maker’s funds, which will be used to compensate affected GPS and SHELL users.

According to Binance’s statement, the details of the compensation plan will be announced by the projects’ teams later.

There’s strong speculation that the blocked market maker is a Chinese company called Whisper. This theory gained traction after Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s founder, shared a tweet from analyst Kuai Dong, linking Whisper to the situation.

How It All Started

Dong explained that the scheme traces back to Spark Digital Capital, a venture firm that initially backed projects with financial support and market-making services in exchange for free tokens. This strategy worked for a while, but as competition heated up in 2021 and 2022, it started losing steam.

To adapt, Spark launched Web3Port, a platform designed to attract venture funds and facilitate deals in return for 1–3% of the projects’ tokens. But here’s the twist — this new model didn’t deliver the profits they were hoping for.

That’s when Web3Port allegedly founded Whisper, which positioned itself as a liquidity provider. But instead of genuinely helping with liquidity, they reportedly dumped leftover tokens from project teams onto retail investors on Binance. Basically, it was a sneaky way to offload tokens without raising suspicion.

Dong’s insights suggest that this whole setup was a calculated play — and now Binance has pulled the plug.