Originally, I was just trying to increase trading volume to earn some airdrop "interest," but in the end, I lost even my principal.

Written by: Haotian

Both $ZKJ and $KOGE were manipulated and plummeted, waking up a large number of retail investors who were boosting trading volume on the Binance Alpha platform. Originally, they were just trying to increase trading volume to earn some airdrop "interest," but in the end, they lost even their principal. What exactly happened behind this? Who should take responsibility for this disaster? I will try to analyze it in depth:

1) First, let's talk about what exactly happened. Binance launched the Alpha platform to boost trading volume for airdrop activities. ZKJ and KOGE, as popular projects, were featured on Alpha, and a large number of retail investors started frantically increasing volume in anticipation of airdrops.

However, just as the Alpha activity was in full swing and retail funds were pouring in, a large holder withdrew about $3.6 million worth of tokens from OKX and directly dumped them on the market. ZKJ crashed first, and due to the high correlation with KOGE, KOGE followed suit. Retail investors, seeing the plummet, began to panic sell, further accelerating the crash cycle. In the end, those users who were "diligently" boosting volume on Binance Alpha waiting for airdrops not only did not receive any returns but also lost all their principal.

2) Who should take responsibility in this "malicious act"?

The project party can say: We didn't make the large holder dump, this is market behavior, but it's simply unbelievable that a major project with a TGE valuation of $2 billion can be manipulated by a few large holders;

The dumping large holder can say: It's my money, I can do whatever I want, I deserve to lose money, but knowing that such a precise timing would cause a chain crash, what is the intention behind it;

The Binance Alpha platform can also say: We are just providing a trading platform, users bear their own risks, but without Binance's platform endorsement, how would users dare to invest heavily? Now that something has happened, how can we possibly distance ourselves from it;

You see, every party involved in this chain seems to have a reason to distance themselves, leaving only the retail investors confused: Why did this hot Alpha Summer end before it even started? Where is my principal?

3) So where did the problem lie? In my view, it appears to be a random market risk on the surface, but in reality, it is a premeditated systematic harvesting:

The project party "designed" a correlation trap, the large holder chose the precise "timing" to strike, Binance provided a "legitimate" harvesting platform, and retail investors bore all the losses.

Specifically:

Binance Alpha made a strategic error under competitive anxiety. Seeing OKX making inroads in the Web3 DEX and wallet space, Binance was anxious as its on-chain trading share was being eroded. Alpha was originally designed quite well—giving project parties a testing period, users an observation period, and itself a risk control period.

But Binance clearly overestimated its risk control capabilities and underestimated the "malice" of market participants. In a rush to regain market share, it forcibly transformed Alpha from an "observation platform" into a "main battlefield." In other words, Alpha was not originally meant to create a better Binance, but to build a new "Binance" on-chain?

What’s worse is that Binance was overly idealistic about the market environment when designing the Alpha mechanism. The "win-win-win" model envisioned by Binance sounds great: project parties test the market through Alpha, users boost volume to earn returns, and the platform earns transaction fees? This logic sounds wonderful but is based on a fatal assumption—that everyone will "act according to the script." What’s the reality? In this liquidity-weak small token market, any artificially created hype is false prosperity, easily punctured.

Binance seems to have forgotten that while the Alpha platform provides convenience, it also creates a perfect "hunting ground" for malicious operators—after all, with Binance's endorsement increasing credibility, an incentive mechanism gathering retail funds, and ample liquidity available for harvesting, everything is in place.

With this combination, Alpha—originally a zone for "risk isolation"—has become a breeding ground for large holders' "precise harvesting."

Ultimately, the entire incident exposed the structural flaws in the current market ecology, where every participant is pursuing short-term profit maximization: project parties want to quickly exit liquidity for cash, large holders want precise arbitrage, trading platforms want to increase trading volume and revenue, and retail investors always want to grab excess returns. Everyone is calculating their own interests, resulting in a "perfect" defeat in a multi-party game.

But after all, this incident occurred on the Binance platform, the world's largest exchange, which should have been the "stabilizing force" for the entire industry, but instead became the main stage for this harvesting drama.

Binance's Alpha strategy essentially used its brand credibility to guarantee the harvesting actions of others. Wanting market share, wanting trading volume, wanting fee income, the result is that they shot themselves in the foot.

Alas, it is lamentable that if "top players" act recklessly like this, and no one is responsible for maintaining order, when can we expect the industry to truly mature? The answer is probably further away than we think.

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