Big dump 80%: The Binance Alpha dilemma behind the price collapse of ZKJ and KOGE coin.

Earn small money, suffer big losses. It's all a bubble, just a moment's fireworks.

Written by: angelilu, Foresight News

Dear players, please open your eyes, tonight ZKJ and KOGE have been poisoned!

In the quiet ending of the weekend market, the crypto market once again staged a thrilling scene. On June 15, 2025, at 20:30, the two tokens with the largest trading volume on the Binance Alpha platform on the BSC chain, ZKJ and KOGE, experienced a cliff-like drop.

The token ZKJ of Polyhedra Network plummeted from $1.946 in a waterfall crash, hitting a low of $0.3767 within just two hours, with a maximum drop of an astonishing 80.64%, causing its market cap to plummet to only $230 million. Meanwhile, KOGE also dropped from $61 to a low of $8.46 within half an hour, with a similarly shocking decline.

Market Impact and Chain Reaction

Coinglass data shows that from 20:00 to 22:00 that night alone, the amount of liquidation on the whole network reached 102 million US dollars, of which ZKJ contributed 94.336 million US dollars, and the long liquidation was as high as 93.6878 million US dollars, forming a typical long trap.

For ordinary participants, the losses are particularly severe. Users who engaged in trading volume manipulation solely to earn Binance Alpha points have suffered devastating blows. Taking an investment of $1,000 as an example, under a decline of 80% in ZKJ, users who panic sold lost an average of about $800, which is close to the earnings from 10 Binance Alpha airdrops. Some users reported that their original plan to accumulate points through small trades with a $5,000 investment was reduced to less than $500 after the flash crash, resulting in a net loss of up to $4,500. This once again confirms the saying "penny wise, pound foolish."

It is worth noting that ZKJ has maintained a trading price of around $2 billion fully diluted valuation (FDV) over the past few months, showing an unusually stable trend—liquidity exceeding $20 million, almost like a "stablecoin," and it has long occupied the top position in the Binance Alpha ranking. This irrational price performance now seems to be the calm before the storm.

Warning Signals Before a Crash

In fact, signs of a crash had already emerged the previous day. The prices of ZKJ and KOGE experienced slight fluctuations yesterday, with analysts pointing out that the initial decline of ZKJ and KOGE was due to a specific address (starting with 0x364) withdrawing 1.29 million ZKJ and 8,667 KOGE from OKX, followed by a selling operation.

Some market observers have stated, "Yesterday, KOGE and ZKJ fluctuated by 3%, which is the countdown to a crash. Price fluctuations → fewer wash traders → APY plummets → LPs withdraw from the pool → spot selling → more people withdraw from the pool. When the negative spiral begins, it is like an avalanche, unrelated to the quality of the project itself."

Even more surprisingly, the 48 Club team behind KOGE stated when the coin price began to fluctuate: "KOGE has been fully released from day one, with no lock-up. 48 Club has never promised not to sell treasury holdings. Investors should conduct their own research and bear the risks." This statement was interpreted by many investors afterward as a disguised "collapse warning."

In-depth Cause Analysis

According to the detailed research of on-chain analyst AI Yi, the flash crashes of ZKJ and KOGE exhibit characteristics of a meticulously planned harvesting operation. Three main addresses targeted the massive trading volume and liquidity formed by the two tokens in the context of Binance Alpha through a "large liquidity withdrawal + continuous selling" double blow, causing the two tokens to collapse one after another:

1. Address 0x1A2 began with two withdrawals of approximately $3.76 million in KOGE and $532,000 in ZKJ between 20:28 and 20:33, followed by swapping 45,470 KOGE for ZKJ, worth $3.796 million, and selling 1.573 million ZKJ in batches.
2. The second key address withdrew about 2.07 million USD worth of KOGE and 1.38 million USD worth of ZKJ in bilateral liquidity, while selling off 1 million ZKJ.
3. The third address conducted a liquidation operation after receiving 772,000 ZKJ transferred from the second address, further exacerbating the downward trend of ZKJ.

It is worth noting that the crypto community once thrived on the operational strategy of "ZKJ-KOGE low wash trading" during the participation in the Binance Alpha airdrop event, which precisely laid the groundwork for this harvesting action.

AI Aunt's in-depth analysis on platform X revealed several key issues regarding this flash crash:

Strategic considerations for the order of market manipulation

The operator first targets KOGE and then ZKJ, which is not a random choice. The primary reason is that ZKJ has contract trading, allowing the operator to short on the exchange while simultaneously dumping on-chain, achieving dual profits. Secondly, from a liquidity perspective, ZKJ has relatively more liquidity, and dumping requires more capital investment; therefore, it is more economical to start with the less liquid KOGE.

mechanism of price delay and crash

ZKJ and KOGE, as well-known "good liquidity + stable coin price" tokens in Binance's alpha ecosystem, have led to their LPs (liquidity providers) generally setting extremely narrow price ranges. Once a large number of sell-offs break through this narrow range, the market will not have enough funds to undertake sell orders, which will inevitably trigger a flash crash. What's more fatal is that LPs tend to panic when they see the price of the currency falling, further exacerbating the vicious circle of the price crash. For those LPs that don't react well, the end result is a passive holding of a large amount of depreciated ZKJ and KOGE tokens.

The precision of timing selection ###

AI Yi speculates that the significant decline in Binance Alpha trading volume over the past few days may be a key factor for operators choosing to dump at this time. For large LPs, 'moving quickly' is often a survival rule. Especially considering that there are few true long-term believers among the holders of ZKJ and KOGE, most participants are only in it for high interest, which makes the entire ecosystem extremely fragile, like a building where the breakage of a single load-bearing pillar can trigger an overall collapse.

Sixteen days before the incident, the two projects had jointly established the ZKJ/KOGE trading pair and liquidity pool on the Pancake platform, accumulating tokens valued at 30 million USD. However, as altcoins within the Alpha ecosystem, once the price of one of the coins collapses, it is likely to trigger a chain sell-off of the other coin, creating a "domino effect."

In addition, on the news front, Polyhedra Network (ZKJ) plans to unlock approximately 15.53 million tokens at 8 AM on June 19, accounting for 5.04% of the current circulating supply, valued at approximately 30.3 million USD. This impending unlocking pressure may also be one of the catalysts for the collapse. Overall, this flash crash is the result of a careful layout on the technical operational level, as well as objective pressure from the market fundamentals, resulting from multiple overlapping factors.

Reflection on Binance Alpha Mechanism

This incident has also sparked a profound reflection on Binance's Alpha points mechanism. Since Binance launched this mechanism, it has attracted a large number of users to participate in the "hair grabbing" activities, but at the same time, it has also provided an opportunity for some ill-intentioned projects.

This flash crash coincided with Binance's Alpha mechanism launching two reform measures: first, the introduction of the Alpha Wealth Management Center, allowing LP providers to earn points; second, the adjustment of the airdrop distribution mechanism, which will be distributed in two phases starting from June 19, allowing users who meet the airdrop threshold to first receive points, and then the remaining points will be distributed at a reduced rate. However, in this incident, holders, liquidity providers, and users trying to earn points during the crash all suffered significant losses.

Market Warnings and Lessons

Many experienced traders within the community point out that so-called trading competitions are often essentially for the project team to unload their assets. Analysts have revealed that before ZKJ was listed on Binance, there were observations of up to 100 million positions on BYBIT, equivalent to over 200 million USD, comparable to the positions of mainstream coin SUI on Binance. In this crash, more than 600,000 USD in positions were liquidated in contracts alone.

A trader's advice is quite representative: "I advise everyone not to buy these kinds of altcoins just because of the Binance trading competition; encountering a price spike could lead to heavy losses. Profits often do not outweigh the potential losses."

The recent plunge of ZKJ and KOGE serves as a wake-up call for the Binance Alpha ecosystem and for participants in the crypto market. In the high-risk crypto market, particularly when facing altcoin projects with opaque governance structures and artificially maintained liquidity, investors must remain highly vigilant to avoid becoming targets for exploitation.

With large and small holders competing to exit the market, the future direction of the Binance Alpha event and the platform's response to such issues will become the focus of market attention.