Behind Binance Alpha’s own mistake: How did the first two batches of tokens perform?

Author: Luke, Mars Finance

What is Binance Alpha?

As one of the world's largest cryptocurrency trading platforms, Binance has always been at the forefront of the market, constantly adjusting its strategies to adapt to the rapidly changing industry environment. Recently, Binance launched Binance Alpha. This new currency listing mechanism is undoubtedly a profound insight into and response to the current crypto market situation. Its main purpose is to provide a stage for these projects by screening and promoting potential tokens that have not yet been widely circulated, while also providing more investment opportunities for platform users.

Binance Alpha is essentially an innovative mechanism proposed by Binance to resolve doubts about currency listing. Different from its traditional currency listing process, the Alpha market allows users to participate in "voting" and trading on new currencies in a more open and speculative way. This not only improves the liquidity of the Binance platform itself, but also attracts more investors to participate in the currency price discovery process through "crowdfunding". Each issue, Binance will launch a number of potential coins for users to participate in transactions, and the growth of transaction volume is directly related to the price fluctuations of the currency - the platform uses transaction volume to screen the most potential projects and promote these projects to enter the mainstream market. .

This mechanism has a high sense of participation, just like a large horse racing track. Users are like gamblers, placing bets on Binance Alpha and guessing which coins will become stars in the future. This "speculation and betting" type of operation immediately attracted a large number of active users to the platform, especially in the context of a sluggish market. This method led to a short-term surge in transaction volume.

Alpha? drama!

At noon today, a Space called "Binance Wallet Rebirth National Review Conference" was held at Binance Alpha. He Yi introduced future innovation plans to everyone. In Space, she mentioned that a Telegram group related to Binance Alpha will be established to allow community members to report potential "Rug Pull" projects in a timely manner. This move was obviously to bring more community interaction and transparency to Binance Wallet, but the host immediately said: "Actually, this group already exists." Immediately afterwards, Binance's official tweet was released in the comment area A group link seems to be the "official platform" related to Binance Alpha.

At this time, thousands of investors quickly poured into the group chat. However, who could have imagined that this simple link would turn into a "Waterloo" in the next few minutes. In this Telegram group, the official announced the first batch of projects listed on binance Alpha, namely: $MONKY, $HAPPY, $RIF, $ZRC, $ELIZA.

Once the information was released, the market reacted quickly and violently: the token prices of these five projects skyrocketed, especially ELIZA, which soared several times in just a few minutes. This seemingly pie-in-the-sky opportunity quickly attracted a large number of short-term speculators, and almost everyone felt that they had seized an excellent trading opportunity.

Holders who were mentioned about the project cheered, "Great, it's Binance, we are saved." But at this time, Binance officially issued a statement to refute the rumors, saying that the Telegram group was not official. At this time, the once skyrocketing currency prices soon suffered heavy losses, and the prices of all projects began to fall rapidly, especially ELIZA, which fell sharply from the high point a few minutes ago. The original "lucky investors" began to suffer losses, and the market sentiment instantly turned from excitement to panic. Investors’ confidence quickly collapsed, and Binance became the clear trigger of the chaos.

At this time, the truth of the incident emerged. Binance officials said: The wrongly posted Telegram group link was indeed officially released by Binance Wallet, but it was accidentally posted by mistake. What followed was a link to a new Telegram group, which was quickly discussed heatedly by investors and formed a new "rights protection position."

In this group, users expressed their dissatisfaction and anger with the official operations, accusing Binance Wallet of being sloppy and irresponsible. Some people even described this matter as a "grassroots team" and mercilessly criticized the capabilities of the Binance team.

A press conference that was supposed to be a market highlight turned into a public relations disaster about trust and transparency in just a few hours. Binance Wallet and Binance Alpha have also been questioned as a result.

There are many victims of this oolong, but the funniest one is undoubtedly the following one:

After the news and false information was released, this unlucky guy sold 1.76 million $arc (about 170,000 US dollars) and bought 1.42 million $ELIZA at a cost of $0.1376.

Later, he realized that ai16z eliza was $eliza in lowercase, and he exchanged all the tokens for $eliza at $0.09567, resulting in a loss of $59,600. Finally, after the official announcement, $eliza also fell immediately. He once again reluctantly lost $43,000 (cost price $0.01693, selling price $0.01157), with an overall loss of 52.5%.

Although this farce of "official error" ended with a simple explanation of "the wrong link was sent", its impact is far from over. With the launch of Binance Alpha, the impact of "crying wolf" seems to be continuing.

Binance Alpha’s first batch of projects saw mixed gains

The first batch of projects on Binance Alpha are: KOMA Cheems APX ai16 z AIXBT

KOMA

Koma Inu (KOMA) is a dog-themed MEME coin inspired by Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu Coin (SHIB), and is committed to becoming a "loyal guardian of BNB." The KOMA project team is experienced and has successfully incubated multiple crypto projects with a market value of over US$100 million, laying a solid foundation for the development of KOMA. The project promotes the continuous growth and evolution of the BNB ecosystem by gathering community consensus.

Cheems

Cheems is a Meme project built around the classic Internet meme "Cheems". This small and cute Shiba Inu, known as the "King of Terriers", carries the humor and emotion of global Internet culture. Now it has successfully penetrated from Web2.0 to encryption. world, becoming a model for community-driven projects. The Cheems project not only attracts a large number of fans with its strong IP endorsement, but also strives to create a truly community-centered and completely decentralized cultural symbol in the Meme ecosystem.

The development of Cheems has been full of drama and counterattacks. Since its first release on ZKSync in 2023, it has become one of the most popular Meme projects in the ecosystem with its rising popularity. Although it has experienced setbacks such as contract FUD and almost zero, Cheems has not sunk, but relies on the team Its resilience and community support allowed it to replace contracts, complete migrations, and even reach an exclusive partnership with ZKSync’s mainstream Dapp Syncswap. In 2024, Cheems successfully migrated to BNB Chain and quickly attracted more users, with community activity continuing to rise.

APX

APX (apollox.finance) is a decentralized derivatives DEX that supports multiple chains. APX received investment from Binance Labs in 2022 and supports BNB Chain, Arbitrum, op BNB, zksync, Manta Network and Base chain. As of now, APX's TVL has reached more than US$350 million.

The main advantages of APX that attract users are:

• The classic perpetual contract can reach 250 times, and can provide leverage up to 1001 times in Degen mode;
• The slippage is low, as low as 0.01%, and the slippage in V2 Degen mode is 0;
• It has high transaction performance and is used by more than 30 partners including pancakeswap;
• Position isolation, if one position is closed, it will not affect other positions.

ai16z

ai16z is a decentralized AI trading fund based on the Solana blockchain. As an "AI investment DAO", the core of ai16z is to use AI agents to obtain market information on and off the chain, analyze community consensus, and automatically conduct token transactions. trade. This new model aims to combine AI trading strategies and decentralized governance through tokenized operations to provide investors with investment opportunities with higher transparency and trust. Moreover, the project received the "platform" of a16z founder Marc Andreessen. Marc posted on his official Twitter, retweeting ai16z's concept picture and official Twitter link.

AIXBT

aixbt is a project created on the AI ​​agent creation platform Virtuals Protocol, a cryptocurrency native agent focusing on discussion and token analysis.

The irony is that the trends of Binance's own projects are always good and bad, and the trend is up and down, while the AI ​​Agent projects on other chains have firmly taken over this wave of good news, and the trend is stable and upward.

A quick look at the second batch of projects

At 8 p.m., the second batch of Binance Alpha projects were also announced, which are:

• BNBChain: CKP;
• Ethereum: GEAR, SD, SYRUP;
• Solana: FARTCOIN

CKP

Cakepie was launched by Magpie to specifically support the long-term development of PancakeSwap. The main goal of Cakepie is to accumulate CAKE tokens and lock them into ve CAKE to gain enhanced yields and have governance power within the platform.

Cakepie offers CAKE holders an opportunity to earn enhanced CAKE rewards as passive income. It also provides PancakeSwap voters with cost-effective voting power and allows liquidity providers to enjoy higher Annualized Interest Rate Percentage (APR %) without having to lock any CAKE tokens into ve CAKE.

GEAR

Gearbox is a leverage protocol on Ethereum that implements leveraged lending and composability by introducing CreditAccounts to promote capital efficiency in the DeFi world. Users can obtain leveraged lending funds on this protocol and enter mainstream DeFi protocols. Credit accounts are independent smart contracts with specific whitelisted operations and assets, ensuring a higher degree of security for user funds and borrowed funds per account.

SD

Stader Labs focuses on providing convenient staking solutions and maximizing users’ staking returns. The platform is leading the future of staking through its full suite of DeFi products, including a simplified one-click staking solution that allows users to easily invest in multiple validators. Stader developed a liquidity staking solution that allows users to pool assets without meeting full staking requirements while minting tokens representing staked assets that grow in value as staking rewards increase. In July this year, Coinbase announced that Stader (SD) was included in its currency listing roadmap.

SYRUP

SYRUP is a lending platform launched by Maple Finance. $ SYRUP is the key to Maple Finance's transformation of the institutional lending market. Users can convert existing MPL tokens into pledged SYRUP at the ratio of 1 MPL: 100 SYRUP, thereby immediately participating in Maple Governance and growth in Finance. Staking SYRUP will provide participants with reward opportunities tied to the performance of the ecosystem.

FARTCOIN

Fart coin belongs to the AI ​​meme concept. During a user interaction event held by Truth Terminal, the platform asked the public what topics they wanted to pay attention to, and its first response was to continue to generate endless Fart Jokes in tweets. This absurd and light-hearted humor quickly attracted a lot of attention, and even Tesla added fart sound effects to its software, further promoting the spread of this cultural phenomenon. In this context, Fart coin came into being. Not only is it being called “the best $GOAT beta yet,” it’s also an experiment in the future potential of AI technology. Fart coin uses a cynical attitude to push Fart Jokes to the blockchain. With a relaxed, humorous and ironic cultural attitude, it combines technology with entertainment and becomes a unique representative in modern network culture.

future outlook

The launch of Binance Alpha reflects Binance’s concerns about its market position. On the one hand, OKX’s web3 wallet shined in the previous Bitcoin ecological craze and attracted a large number of users, but Binance’s own wallet has always received a mediocre response; on the other hand, HyperLiquid’s transparent currency listing strategy and public opinion discussions have recently It has also put considerable pressure on Binance, so it is not an exaggeration to say that Binance Alpha is resigned to defeat.

In the past few years, Binance’s currency listing strategy has been centered around two main lines: one is to select VC coins (tokens with venture capital background) with higher risks but huge potential, and the other is to list coins that are already on other platforms Low market cap tokens traded. However, the effect of the first path is not ideal. Many VC coins tend to trend lower after opening higher, and market speculation gradually cools down. On the other hand, Binance still has not found a truly stable breakthrough in the selection and launch process of this type of currency.

Therefore, Binance chose the second path: listing low-market tokens that already have a certain amount of circulation on the market. By competing for the opportunity to list their tokens in the Binance Alpha market, project parties and communities have indirectly contributed to a surge in the trading volume of these tokens on the Binance platform. For example, MEME, which was recently launched on the Solana chain, and CAT, which was launched on the BNB chain, are typical representatives of this strategy. Through the introduction of these tokens, Binance hopes to create more trading pairs and attract more users to participate in transactions.

However, this strategy also brings some significant challenges. On the one hand, Binance is facing a competition between VC coins and low market value tokens. Although the selection of low-market capitalization tokens may attract more attention and participation, due to the relatively weak liquidity and acceptance capacity of the market, these tokens will often fall into the market once they encounter a price drop after speculation. Weak cycle. Although the release of high-market value tokens was able to attract a large number of investors for a time, since the entire market has not returned to the liquidity of the peak period, the price volatility of these tokens is still very high, and "high opening and low closing" often occur. In this situation, it is difficult for investors to gain sustained confidence.

The launch of Binance Alpha has undoubtedly increased the activity of the platform in the short term, but its sustainability is still questionable. As the market weakens, this high frequency of token screening and transaction push may make investors feel fatigued. In addition, this strategy of Binance will also force the project team to pay more attention to "flush volume" and community mobilization. In order to win the favor of Binance, the project team will have to adopt a series of radical means to increase transaction volume, including brush volume, community voting, holding events, etc., which may also lead to a vicious cycle in the market ecology. Some low-quality projects or “air coins” may gain momentum through hype under this mechanism, while projects with real potential are drowned in the noise.

All in all, Binance Alpha is a bold attempt, but it will take time to verify whether its effect is "leading the trend" or "a flash in the pan." In the process of this game, Binance is not only betting against the market, but also racing against time, trying to bring new vitality to the encryption industry. However, any game may have an unexpected ending.