- Binance affiliates have filed a $472.8 million lawsuit in Hong Kong against RedotPay’s co-founders, alleging the crypto card firm diverted more than 470,000 Binance users to its own product.
- Binance also alleges roughly $304 million in Binance Pay user funds was funneled into RedotPay’s ecosystem without proper segregation.
- RedotPay says it will “vigorously defend” the claims and that the case won’t affect day-to-day operations.
- A parallel petition from a separate Binance affiliate is already pending in Singapore, with a hearing set for August 7, days after the Hong Kong filing became public.
- The dispute lands as RedotPay pursues a US IPO that could value it above $4 billion.
Binance affiliates have filed a nearly half-billion-dollar lawsuit against the founders of RedotPay, accusing the Hong Kong-based crypto card company of running a scheme that funneled hundreds of thousands of Binance users onto its own platform, just as RedotPay prepares a US IPO that could value it at more than $4 billion.
The claim: $472.8 million, 470,000 users
Three Binance-affiliated entities (Nest Trading Ltd., Distributed Technologies Ltd., and Chaintecs Consulting Singapore Pte) filed a petition in a Hong Kong court naming RedotPay co-founders Gao Zhangpeng, Chan Wa Choi, and Yao Chao as defendants. The filing accuses the trio of breaching a March 2025 partnership agreement by diverting more than 470,000 Binance users to RedotPay’s own product instead of keeping them within the agreed scope of the deal.
Binance calculated its damages by valuing each diverted user at $925 in estimated lifetime revenue, arriving at the $472.8 million figure it’s now seeking in court. Separately, the exchange alleges that roughly $304 million in Binance Pay user funds was funneled into RedotPay’s ecosystem in ways the original agreement didn’t permit, according to a Bloomberg.
The case also follows Binance’s March 2026 defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, highlighting the exchange’s increasingly active use of legal action to challenge claims it disputes.
How the alleged diversion worked
Under the 2025 partnership, RedotPay integrated Binance Pay into its crypto debit card system, letting Binance users tap RedotPay’s card infrastructure for a narrow set of purposes: converting crypto to fiat, making in-app transfers, or buying RedotPay-branded goods. According to the court filing, that’s not what actually happened. Binance alleges RedotPay let, and even encouraged, Binance Pay funds to be used without segregation for purposes the agreement explicitly excluded, including loading balances directly onto RedotPay’s own card product.
In effect, Binance argues, RedotPay treated Binance’s user base and payment rails as a funnel into its own competing card business rather than the narrow bridge the contract described.
From Binance Partnership to Lawsuit
- March 2025: Binance and RedotPay sign a commercial agreement integrating Binance Pay into RedotPay’s card system.
- March 2026: Binance says it discovers Binance Pay funds are being used, without segregation, for prohibited purposes within RedotPay.
- April 3, 2026: Binance terminates all Binance Pay functionality on RedotPay; reported at the time, though not independently confirmed by us, as a routine review of merchant partners.
- August 2026: Binance files suit in Hong Kong; a parallel Chaintecs-affiliate petition is pending in Singapore, with a hearing set for August 7.
Why the timing matters for RedotPay’s IPO
RedotPay has been preparing a US IPO that could raise more than $1 billion and value the company above $4 billion, with JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Jefferies engaged on the potential listing. The company has also been in talks to raise a further $150 million in private funding.
A lawsuit alleging that a meaningful share of RedotPay’s user base, and the revenue tied to it, came from an improperly diverted source goes directly to the kind of user-growth and revenue claims that IPO investors typically scrutinize during diligence. Binance’s core legal theory (that hundreds of thousands of users and the revenue they generate were obtained through a breach of contract) is also the same growth story RedotPay would need to defend to underwriters and prospective public shareholders.
The August 7 Hearing Could Be the Next Key Test: The Singapore hearing on August 7 will be the first real test of how courts treat Binance’s claims, and it may signal how the Hong Kong case is likely to unfold. Whether RedotPay files a fuller public response, addressing the open question raised above, will shape how much this affects its IPO timeline in the months ahead.
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