The man who challenged CZ: profile of CJ Hetherington
CJ Hetherington – CEO of Base‑native Limitless – ignites a public fight over Binance’s listing terms.
He alleges projects are asked to reserve 9% of supply for airdrops/marketing/BNB-related programs. Binance disputes the framing and says it does not charge listing fees, that any security deposit is meant to protect users. The exchange also denies token‑dumping claims.
Binance calls his disclosure unauthorized and reserves legal rights. CJ says he signed no NDA. Builders and commentators pile in – some defending CEX practices, others arguing listings should carry zero fees.
So, who is CJ Hetherington?
On Substack, he writes about topics such as bond markets disciplining governments and capital formation in an age of abundance. He has also explored the European economic model through a Canadian lens and questioned whether U.S. equities enjoy a self‑reinforcing network‑effects moat. The through‑line is pro‑market, long‑horizon investing and institutional effectiveness, delivered in a deliberately provocative voice.
CJ states he is 24 and is based in New York. His recent public voice is primarily on X; most long‑form talks on YouTube trace back ~3 years.
After the post, he wrote:
More people are reaching out than ever… you cannot fool all the people all the time. Freedom for the coins!
For crypto readers, this is less about one spat and more about how Base‑native builders are challenging the cost structure of centralized listings – fees, deposits, liquidity obligations – in public. Putting those knobs in the open gives founders and users cleaner inputs to judge trade‑offs between reach, dilution risk and float management.
Background
He is the co-founder & CEO of Limitless Labs (Nov 2023–present), a Base‑native prediction/price‑markets product and blockchain/AI lab based in New York. He presents Limitless as a one‑page, wallet‑native way for casual users to pick a side on crypto or stocks.
Limitless gives casual users up to 2000× implicit leverage on a single mobile page – without liquidations or funding‑rate jargon,he writes.
He also pitches a new class of ultra‑short‑horizon markets (hourly/daily) and a future layer of structured products aimed at passive high‑yield exposure.
Limitless lists early supporters including Coinbase Ventures, 1confirmation, Base Ecosystem Fund, and others; community threads also tout Arthur Hayes as an advisor. Figures cited by supporters include ~$7M raised pre‑launch and >$490M in cumulative trades, plus AI‑assisted markets for faster bets. These figures are project-reported and remain unverified by independent sources.
CJ previously co‑founded Atlantis World (Jun 2021–Oct 2023), a bootstrapped web3 social‑onboarding platform that reports about $2M in revenue, 56k users onboarded, and 30+ decentralized frontends built for protocols such as Optimism, Polygon, Avalanche, Celo, NEAR, Yearn, and others.
From Aug 2022 to Apr 2024, he served as Venture Partner at TA Ventures, helping design a crypto fund‑of‑funds strategy (LP positions in Alliance DAO and Bankless Ventures) and supporting early teams. Community roles include Gitcoin KB3 Fellow (2021) and Optimism RetroPGF badgeholder (2023–2024), voting in rounds of ~$25M and ~$111M, respectively. He also participated in the WEF’s Global Shapers (2023–2024).
In 2022 he co‑founded Kyiv Tech Summit during Russia’s full‑scale war against Ukraine – a builder event that brought Vitalik Buterin for his first in‑person visit to the country, distributed $50k+ to underground hackathon teams, and raised ~$30k for displaced children.
What next?
Exchanges may clarify public guidance on deposits/programs and tighten comms; projects will choose venues based on terms they can defend to their communities.
For CJ and Limitless, the proving ground remains the product: whether short‑horizon, on‑chain price markets can scale without familiar off‑chain practices – and whether the team can back claims with transparent data and audits.
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