Original Title: "KOGE, ZKJ: A Sudden Collapse Overnight Forces Binance Alpha to Evolve"

Author: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily

Overnight, many Binance Alpha players woke up to feel as if "the sky had fallen"—the two major tokens, KOGE and ZKJ, which were pivotal for Alpha point interactions, experienced a sudden collapse. As of the time of writing, the price of ZKJ stands at $0.32, marking a 24-hour drop of 83.7%. Previously, its 24-hour high had reached $1.98, while its low plummeted to $0.25. Meanwhile, KOGE is trading at $27.75, with a 24-hour decline of 55.78%, down from its 24-hour high of $62.81 to a low of $8.48 at one point.

Breaking news: Binance has issued an official statement acknowledging "recent significant price fluctuations in ZKJ and KOGE." Preliminary investigations indicate that the main causes were large holders withdrawing on-chain liquidity and ensuing market-wide liquidations. Starting from June 17, 2025, at 00:00 (UTC), Binance will revise its Alpha point calculation rules, ensuring that trading volumes between Alpha tokens will no longer count towards point calculations. The booming, ever-intensifying "Binance Alpha Test" has reached a turning point with the ZKJ/KOGE price flash-crash event. Odaily Planet Daily seeks to provide a detailed analysis of this event and leverage it as a lens to examine the advantages and shortcomings of the Binance Alpha mechanism, as well as its potential future trajectory.

A Three-Week "Alpha Hunt": Using KOGE and ZKJ as the Net, With Alpha Points as the Bait

On May 24, as BTC's overall market value gradually rallied, enthusiasm for Binance Alpha interaction surged in tandem. Its trading volume spiked to $1.69 billion, with ZKJ contributing $1.05 billion, KOGE $251 million, and B2 $205.9 million, putting the three well ahead of other tokens.

Due to ZKJ and KOGE's lower transaction friction costs and ample liquidity—accommodating large trades worth tens of thousands of dollars for Binance Alpha interactions—the two tokens were deemed optimal choices for "Alpha test candidates" after being effectively tested by market participants. For instance, a single $10,000 transaction of KOGE could reportedly incur a minimal transaction friction of approximately $0.50. Many users in the community have remarked that KOGE might exemplify the "one fish, multiple meals" strategy often employed by major Binance Smart Chain (BSC) players.

Originally, this was a "win-win for all parties" game:

· Binance Alpha gains users and transaction fees;

· Major BSC node operators earn transaction fees;

· Binance Alpha users gain Alpha points;

· Project teams like KOGE and ZKJ earn rewards such as LP fees.

However, once the balance of interests begins to tilt, the seemingly stable situation can collapse instantly, turning the hard-earned "harvest phase" into a "liquidation operation." On June 14, ZKJ and KOGE tokens faced their "first testing of the waters" in the buildup to a storm. According to on-chain analyst AI-Yi’s monitoring, the typically steady price movement of ZKJ and KOGE experienced a short-term decline of 3% between 9:20 PM and 10:05 PM. This was suspected to be caused by address 0x364 removing liquidity and engaging in consecutive sell-offs.

At 9:49 PM, this address withdrew dual-sided liquidity of 1.29 million ZKJ and 8,667 KOGE from OKX, subsequently:

· Between 9:21 PM and 10:05 PM, it cumulatively sold approximately $3.1 million worth of ZKJ; and at 9:20 PM, sold around $550,000 worth of KOGE.

· At 9:21 PM, ZKJ’s trading volume surged instantly to $12.73 million, triggering a cascading sell-off within 15 minutes, potentially due to LP panic exits causing a chain reaction. A similar event occurred at 10:05 PM.

· KOGE, being tightly tied to ZKJ, also took a hit despite the relatively smaller sell-off amount.

On June 15, ZKJ and KOGE faced their final liquidation—three major addresses applied dual pressures of "large-scale liquidity withdrawals + continuous sell-offs," leading to the successive collapse of ZKJ and KOGE:

1. Between 8:28:58 PM and 8:36:57 PM, 45,470 KOGE was exchanged for ZKJ, worth $3.796 million. During this time, KOGE's on-chain transaction volume showed noticeable growth. Subsequently, between 8:30:57 PM and 8:59:49 PM, a total of 1.573 million ZKJ was sold in batches in exchange for USDT and BNB, worth $3.052 million, with an average selling price of $1.94. At this point, both KOGE and ZKJ experienced a minor stepwise decline but not a full-on crash.

2. Address 0x078 withdrew 33,651 KOGE tokens (approximately $2.07 million) and 709,203 ZKJ tokens (approximately $1.38 million) bilateral liquidity at 20:30:33. Between 20:31:10 and 20:58:18, the address swapped 36,814 KOGE for ZKJ tokens, valued at $2.26 million. Between 20:35:15 and 20:37:34, it sold off 1 million ZKJ tokens, valued at $1.948 million, at an average selling price of $1.948 per token. This address’s "relay-style dumping" ultimately triggered a sharp decline in KOGE’s token price, as reflected in the candlestick chart with several consecutive large red bearish candles.

3. Address 0x6aD received 772,759 ZKJ tokens at 20:41:55 from address 0x078 (the aforementioned dumping address), valued at $1.5 million. Between 20:42:28 and 20:50:16, this address liquidated all 772,759 ZKJ tokens. It appears that this third address was primarily used for coordination purposes—further amplifying ZKJ’s downturn after KOGE’s price collapse, thus completing the draining of liquidity providers (LPs) for both tokens and squeezing token holders.

ZKJ candlestick chart

KOGE candlestick chart

As for why the operation began with ZKJ, blockchain analyst AI Yi suggests it could be due to certain strategic factors. First, ZKJ is traded on centralized exchange (CEX) contracts, allowing the orchestrators to short the token on the exchange while simultaneously dumping it on-chain. Second, from a liquidity perspective, ZKJ likely had better liquidity, necessitating a larger capital outlay to execute the dumping. Moreover, both ZKJ and KOGE’s LP ranges are extremely narrow, meaning that once the price is dumped significantly beyond this range with insufficient buy support, a flash crash becomes unavoidable. LPs observing the price drop would likely panic and retreat, triggering a vicious cycle of further price collapses. Additionally, speculation suggests that the consecutive decline in Alpha trading volume over recent days might have acted as a catalyst, while the withdrawal of significant LP funds underscores the "fastest to run" mentality in such scenarios.

Furthermore, according to crypto KOL “Big Orange,” the price of ZKJ tokens on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) network was twice the price of the Ethereum (ETH) network version. Binance’s ZKJ contract is for ETH-based tokens, yet the ZKJ tokens on Binance Alpha tied to the BSC network turned out to be “single-player tokens” — i.e., the initial LP on BSC was supplied entirely by the project team. The first major dump targeted the BSC network, causing panic, and subsequent traders followed by crashing the Bybit contract, resulting in the ETH network spot price collapsing as well.

The ZKJ Token Price on BSC Chain via Binance Alpha

According to data from Coinglass, the total liquidation volume across the entire network in the past 24 hours reached $215 million. Among this, long-position liquidations accounted for a staggering $157 million, with ZKJ alone contributing $102 million. For KOGE whales who leveraged KOGE/ZKJ to execute liquidity exits, this was nothing short of a brutal liquidity feast.

The Largest Single-Asset Liquidation Occurred on Bybit

To sum up, the flash crash of ZKJ and KOGE was a premeditated hunting operation, while Binance Alpha points were seemingly enticing yet inherently perilous bait.

Traders Trapped in the Binance Alpha Fortress: Points as Grades, Airdrops as Gifts and Costs

Following the ZKJ and KOGE flash crash debacle, discussions about the Binance Alpha points system became a hot topic. Many participants were left with nothing but the bitter fruit of “assets -80% or more” in this incident, leading to widespread dissatisfaction with the Binance Alpha mechanism. The immediate statement issued by Binance’s official team further underscored the severity of the event.

Binance Alpha Airdrops Can’t Offset ZKJ Flash Crash Losses

As on-chain analyst AI Yi pointed out, the total value of all Binance Alpha project airdrops to date does not even come close to the market cap loss of ZKJ. Its market cap plunged from $2 billion to $377 million, losing about 81% in less than a day. This highlights the extreme volatility and ruthlessness of the cryptocurrency sector. Many individuals who invested thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars saw their assets shrink by over 80% in a flash.

Previously, according to statistics by X platform user Mingo, Binance Alpha's monthly yield in May was approximately $1500. For many participants, their diligent efforts over a month were wiped out in one swift move, losing thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars, making it scarcely worth the trade-off.

Overview of Binance Alpha May Performance

Binance Alpha Points and the Numbers Game: A Paradigm Shift Needed

In response to the recent turmoil, Binance issued an announcement promptly, stating: "We have noticed significant price fluctuations in ZKJ and KOGE recently, which, upon preliminary investigation, primarily stem from large holders removing on-chain liquidity and cascading liquidations in the market. To maintain market fairness and stability, and mitigate the systemic risks of centralization, Binance will adjust the Alpha Points calculation rules starting from 00:00 UTC, June 17, 2025. By then, trading volumes between Alpha tokens will no longer count toward point calculation."

Going forward, Binance Alpha may need to transition away from its pure numbers game approach. Some ideas for reference include:

1. Establish mechanisms to prevent trading volume from overly concentrating on a small number of tokens such as KOGE and ZKJ, ensuring that interaction frictions are relatively balanced and manageable;

2. Diversify Alpha Points earning methods beyond token transactions, such as community involvement and posting on Binance Square. Exploring InfoFi-based contributions like community promotion or "mouth mining" might also be considered as part of the scoring system;

3. Introduce monitoring mechanisms to prevent situations where large holders of KOGE manipulate interconnected processes such as "token issuance - liquidity pool creation - Alpha list inclusion - Alpha points accrual." Admittedly, this idea is highly idealistic and technically challenging to implement.

KOGE Project Team Responds Strongly: Not Involved, Never Held ZKJ, Did Not Dump KOGE

Regarding last night's dramatic price crash of KOGE and ZKJ, KOGE project team's 48 Club founder Ian posted on Binance Square this morning: "The sharp decline was not caused by the 48 Club treasury dumping KOGE, nor was it caused by me personally dumping KOGE. The 48 Club has no business dealings with the ZKJ project team and has no such plans. The 48 Club treasury has never held (or) ZKJ; I personally have never held (or) ZKJ. Colleagues from both Binance Research and Binance Web3 have reached out for clarification regarding the price drop, and I have provided the above explanation. The 48 Club has never offered 'low-fee pools restricted to large amounts,' and technically, it would not even be feasible to implement such a system via IP restrictions."

As a supernode of the BSC ecosystem, lan's response seems more like an excuse to distance itself from the incident. However, based on the existing information, there is indeed no concrete evidence to directly link it to the dumping address. The truth of the matter remains to be further uncovered.

Summary: The liquidity feast is ultimately paid for by retail investors

In the end, the ones who suffer the most are the retail investors in the market. After all, Binance as a platform still earns trading fees as returns, while whales like ZKJ and KOGE have successfully harvested liquidity. The retail investors in the market, however, become wave after wave of "chives" being harvested. But for the "sickles," if this kind of predatory harvesting accelerates too quickly or occurs too frequently, who will continue to step in as fresh liquidity providers?

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