Binance Alpha has formed a consensus of value among various circles, including project parties, rug pull communities, and retail investors. Project parties offer to Alpha, rug pull communities undergo KYC in bulk to start a new rug pull journey, while retail investors navigate between token restrictions, lucky final digits, and trading erosion to profit.

From the very beginning, Alpha's launch was considered the best exit window for meme coins, to Alpha 2.0's early rounds of "violent money distribution," and then to the introduction of a point system to filter users, with token issuers queuing up to list on Alpha, Binance has step by step regained control of the on-chain market's traffic and pricing power. Behind all this is Binance's ambition to reorganize the ecosystem through liquidity governance on the asset side, following OKX's surpassing of Binance on the product side.

After 150 days, Binance Alpha has evolved from a wallet feature into the most influential structural mechanism in the entire crypto market.

What Has Alpha Achieved in 5 Months?

In 2024, the crypto market experienced a bull market boom driven by the approval of a Bitcoin spot ETF and the meme craze. However, beneath the facade of improved liquidity, a deeper issue emerged: the pricing mechanism between the primary and secondary markets began to malfunction. VC project valuations were inflated, project token release cycles were repeatedly extended, user participation barriers continued to rise, and the ultimate listing opportunity often turned into a collective cash-out for project parties and early investors, leaving retail investors with nothing but losses.

It was against this backdrop that Binance launched Binance Alpha on December 17, 2024. Initially, it was just an experimental feature in the Binance Web3 wallet for discovering high-quality projects, but quickly evolved into a core tool for Binance to restructure its pricing power in the on-chain market.

In a Space event responding to community disputes, Binance co-founder He Yi acknowledged the "peak at listing" issue in Binance listings and admitted that the traditional listing mechanism was increasingly unsustainable given the current scale and regulatory constraints. Binance had previously attempted mechanisms such as voting for listings and Dutch auctions to limit the post-listing price performance, but the results were always unsatisfactory.

Therefore, Alpha listing became a strategic alternative within Binance's controllable range at that stage.

"Place these hot projects in the Binance Alpha, projects in the observation zone are not guaranteed to be listed on Binance. Only when a project is beneficial to society can it generate income and profits, and only then can it share the benefits with users." This was the commitment He Yi made in the Space event.

On December 18, Binance Alpha announced the first batch of projects. Until February 13, Binance Alpha had onboarded a total of over 80 tokens from ecosystems such as BSC, Solana, and Base, mainly focusing on meme and AI tokens. However, the market did not react as Binance expected, failing to decrease the criticism of VC coins that experienced a drop right after listing. Instead, the Alpha launch became the final stop for meme coins.

It wasn't until early February 2025 that the BSC ecosystem, starting from the test coin TST, established a connection between Alpha and traffic flow. It was also during this period that Alpha began listing non-meme tokens such as ONDO, MORPHO, AERO, and others.

In March, due to the closure of OKX DEX, Binance Wallet introduced Binance Alpha 2.0 at this juncture. By integrating Binance Alpha directly into CEX, users could directly trade Alpha tokens using funds within the platform. Consequently, Binance Wallet's trading volume and active users surged, overtaking the competition with an 80% share of the cryptocurrency wallet trading volume, marking one of the steepest growth curves in wallet product history.

Simultaneously, Binance's criteria for selecting Alpha users continued to evolve. The initial "task-based point system" was no longer sufficient for effective differentiation; thus, the platform quickly introduced systems such as lucky number endings and point consumption to encourage more frequent interaction. This mechanism balanced user engagement continuity and differentiation while providing project teams with relatively precise airdrop target groups.

No More Hesitation for Project Teams

Since the introduction of the Alpha mechanism, the selection dilemma for project teams has undergone a transformation.

Faced with the high uncertainty of the mainnet listing window, pressure to deliver in the on-chain community, and the valuation inversion in VC portfolios, more and more teams have come to realize that solely relying on storytelling, community maintenance, or waiting for traditional listing processes may not be sufficient to gain market attention and liquidity support.

Instead of persisting in a path with unquantifiable outcomes, many teams have chosen to proactively adapt to the new paradigm brought by Alpha. Within the Alpha system, token flows, airdrop allocations, and trading activity can all be directly reflected as observable platform data. These data points are likely the precursor to formal listing on Binance, and joining Alpha can also attract market attention with almost no negative impact.

It is for this reason that project teams have begun to quickly adjust their strategies, no longer wavering between whether to launch or not, when to launch, and other conflicting decisions, but instead proactively designing a "low-cost listing on Binance" execution model tailored for the Alpha mechanism.

Betrayal Becomes the Norm in the Community

Currently, Binance Alpha has two listing options: either existing projects with circulating tokens or new projects with non-circulating tokens. Around these two main options, there are different detailed metrics to consider. This makes Alpha an entry point with a clear set of rules and standards.

From an execution standpoint, the pace of listing on the main Binance exchange through Alpha has been extremely restrained, with the spot listing slots over the past five months being significantly lower than Binance's previous listing pace. This scarce and limited design has created a typical Web2-style growth flywheel—distributing rewards to attract traffic, setting thresholds to filter users, continuously optimizing internal rules, and ultimately achieving user retention and ecosystem strengthening.

To enter this system, project teams typically need to make significant adjustments, including but not limited to deploying or mapping tokens to the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), redesigning incentive structures, and sacrificing some of the originally planned community airdrop allocation. To some extent, Alpha is not just a wallet product but more like a lightweight, centralized on-chain token issuance protocol that aligns with Binance's platform requirements for data selection and risk hedging.

After Zora, a project in the Base ecosystem, announced its inaugural listing on Binance Alpha, someone in a Telegram group jokingly said, "Don't set your expectations too high; maybe spending a few years farming isn't as good as trying out Alpha." Surprisingly, as predicted, eligible Binance Alpha users received 4,276 ZORA tokens, worth nearly 90U; however, many community members who had been following Zora since its launch and participating in ecosystem activities expressed their disappointment at only receiving a 30U airdrop, and some even received tokens in single digits.

Screenshot of airdrop earnings shared by Zora ecosystem users; Image Source: @zkgoudan

This kind of situation, where Alpha users are directly served bypassing the original community, is not uncommon among projects already listed on Alpha.

For example, in the case of PRAI, according to feedback from users who participated in its KOL rounds, "VC and KOL rounds are at a loss." On one hand, the project imposes lock-up policies on community users, restricting token circulation; on the other hand, Alpha users do not have to bear the costs of early participation or capital lockups, as they can receive a nearly $100-worth airdrop of tokens solely based on wallet points and interaction records. This significant incentive gap has disrupted the project's original notion of "internal ecosystem fairness."

A user who participated in the Sui ecosystem lending protocol Haedal's deposit informed BlockBeats that Haedal's airdrop amount varied widely, almost ignoring the early depositors' participation cost, leaving significant rewards only for Alpha users.

Before the launch of Alpha on Osmosis's Celestia liquidity staking derivative protocol MilkyWay, community users not only endured a TIA drop, with the project allocating a small share to early users who not only had to lock up their tokens but also had to complete unlocking tasks. Those who only held NFTs without binding to the point system were not eligible for the airdrop, and the airdrop window was also very short, resulting in much lower returns compared to Alpha users.

This departure from supporting the project's native community and realigning resources to Alpha users, although sparking widespread discussion, is a practical choice for most projects: prioritizing resources towards paths that can bring secondary liquidity and platform exposure under limited resources is a strategy for maximizing efficiency.

After Alpha Launch

The core metric for listing on Binance Alpha is how much liquidity can be provided, which is also in line with the concept of "embracing the Binance ecosystem and BNB chain."

According to crypto influencer AB Kuai.Dong's analysis, Puffer launched Alpha seven months after the token issuance. Based on on-chain data, it is shown that the project team mapped approximately 3.16% of the tokens to the BNB chain, with 1.24% directly allocated to the Alpha user airdrop pool. Additionally, they injected nearly 500,000 USDC into PancakeSwap for liquidity. Based on estimates, Puffer's total cost for this Alpha airdrop is close to $3 million.

As AB commented, "the cost is not small, but the benefits are obvious." Through the Alpha feature entrance, they directly obtained access to the Binance CEX trading channel. Before obtaining futures trading or listing on the main exchange, they had already completed liquidity preheating and market awareness paving.

A similar path can also be seen in the star project in the ZK track, Polyhedra, whose token ZKJ entered Alpha before being listed on the Binance main exchange, becoming the first top 100 market cap token to be included in this mechanism. To support the token price, the project successively launched up to 150% staking rewards and points competitions to attract users to engage in trading activities and increase wallet activity. Strategically, perhaps the project team aims to leverage Alpha's internal metrics to build influence and ultimately drive the decision for Binance listing.

ZKJ has consistently ranked first in Alpha transaction volume recently; Image Source: Panda Jackson(@pandajackson42)

This on-chain behavior-reward points-platform inclusion loop has reshaped the game theory structure between Binance and project teams: in the past, "market cap + community" determined the listing eligibility, but now it is the "on-chain data + Alpha performance" that drives the listing pace.

The strategy of new projects is even more aggressive. Since Stakestone launched on Binance Alpha in mid-April, they have adopted an extremely proactive market approach, first distributing 5% of the tokens through a wallet IDO, then covering Alpha users with a 1.5% airdrop, additionally releasing nearly 4% incentives to the old community users, totaling more than 10% of the total supply.

At the same time, the project team directly invested some of the funds into the secondary market, guiding the coin price to remain stable during the initial public circulation. This series of operations eventually secured a listing on the Binance main exchange. As industry insiders familiar with the process have said: "After the changes in Binance's listing standards, projects no longer need to tell a story but rather need to demonstrate data and control."

Retail Investor Psychology

Compared to the project teams' adept calculations and well-thought-out strategies, the role of retail investors appears complex and ambiguous.

In traditional IPO logic, retail investors could leverage their sharp information and agile capital to obtain first-level arbitrage opportunities. However, under the Alpha-built point system, the profit path for retail investors has been institutionalized, made transparent, and has become highly exclusive. What Alpha activates is not the imagination of price growth but rather the "points-airdrop-listing springboard" chain of on-chain conversion mechanisms.

For some users, this mechanism has indeed reshaped the concept of fairness. Small to medium-sized users who have long remained active in their wallets, even if they do not have a large amount of funds, still have the opportunity to receive returns from Alpha far exceeding their costs. Since the introduction of the points system in Alpha, according to BlockBeats' statistics, if an ordinary user participates in every Alpha airdrop and wallet launch event, they will receive nearly 1700U in returns.

However, the flip side of high returns is a highly structured filtering system. This seemingly participatory points game actually sets implicit thresholds, placing significant demands on users' behavioral paths, transaction frequencies, and participation sustainability.

Binance itself does not directly distribute airdrops, but instead provides infrastructure such as points distribution, data filtering, and user categorization. The airdrop is undertaken by the project team, but who receives it and based on what criteria is determined by the Binance Alpha mechanism. The core of this system is not "reward," but "filtering." Those who can be identified as "high-value users" will continue to receive airdrops.

Questions have also arisen, with some users pointing out that there is a disparity between the trading volume on Alpha and actual user demand. "No points and airdrops mean no trading," leading to inflated project team data, superficial user retention, and "What is the difference between this incentive method and ghost chains and fake-game airdrops that no one uses after the TGE?"

According to crypto influencer Gu He's statistics, in the sample analyzed, only 22% of users who trade normally every day can earn enough points to receive the airdrop, while the rest need to continuously trade repeatedly or give up participation if they can't keep up with the points rhythm.

However, it is undeniable that in the current market environment characterized by overall liquidity scarcity and a lack of sustained attention mechanisms for projects, Alpha remains one of the few channels where doing something might lead to a return. With returns and certainty coexisting, this mechanism still holds strong attraction. In this system, retail participants' logic of involvement has shifted from value judgment to mechanism gaming. Their returns no longer depend on their judgment of the project's future but rather on their understanding of the Alpha mechanism and their execution capability.

Who are the real beneficiaries of Alpha?

Although retail participants and project teams each have their own game in the Alpha mechanism, when looking at the overall framework, what Alpha truly reshapes is the underlying relationship between the trading platform and assets.

In terms of product experience and tool ecosystem, Binance does not have a significant advantage over platforms like OKX. However, through the liquidity entry mechanism built by Alpha, it still retains a strong say in asset launches.

Even if a project does not debut on Binance, the traffic filtering and points path provided by Alpha are enough to allow a large number of new coins to complete a market warming-up and price anchoring round before being listed on the main platform trading pairs. It changes the starting point of launching a coin and extends the boundary of Binance's impact on the asset side.

Yesterday's launch of the Alpha-chain game NXPC is a good example. Shortly after the on-chain liquidity pool opened, the Alpha airdrop was synchronized and distributed to point users, while Binance's futures and spot markets lagged by almost half an hour and several hours, respectively, and price discrepancies existed on other trading platforms such as Bybit and Upbit. The trading windows at different speeds determine the profits at each stage, reinforcing Alpha's leading role in liquidity bootstrapping.

In the past, launching a project on Binance meant that the initial pricing had already been completed, reaching the final destination. However, now Alpha is the starting point for a project launch, the origin of pricing. It has moved the cold-start field that originally belonged to OKX, Bybit, and other exchanges back into the Binance ecosystem. Once a project gains momentum through Alpha, integrating with Binance's futures and spot markets becomes a natural progression. Projects are willing to "offer" their token allocation according to the rules, providing token allocation and injecting funds in exchange for platform exposure and liquidity support, thus creating a closed-loop system of traffic feedback to the platform.

This also relieves Binance from the past burden of the "listing equals peak" narrative. CZ has expressed his desire to eliminate the premium effect caused by listings on Binance and return the market to its fundamentals. Alpha is actually his realization of this statement, no longer directly asserting authority through "listing on Binance" but establishing a new liquidity screening mechanism through Alpha to level the playing field among projects. The decision of which project can advance further is then based on on-chain data.

Currently, this approach seems to be successful as Alpha is not only a feature in the Binance Wallet but also represents Binance's redefined understanding of its role. Its success is not based on whether the product experience is exceptional but on how it has transitioned Binance's first-level asset organization capability from behind the scenes to on-chain, transparent, and quantifiable.

Compared to OKX's product refinement approach in the wallet field, Binance has chosen to exchange points for traffic and airdrops for attention. Winson, the head of Binance's wallet business, publicly stated that Binance's wallet will not simply replicate any competitor's model but will opt for differentiated development, as "the market does not need two identical wallets." Instead of redoing the product, he believes in reshaping the scenario.

Faced with industry challenges such as airdrop-driven trading volume and distorted trade data, Binance is not attempting to eliminate these behaviors but has established a mechanism for projects to first prove their attractiveness and then observe whether they can form a stable user base and genuine trading depth. The boundary between volume padding and real activity is postponed for evaluation within Alpha's point system and is also data-driven.

However, from another perspective, many still believe that Binance Alpha has successfully attracted rug pullers but has not drawn genuine trading volume. When users choose on-chain activities, they still do not prioritize the Binance Wallet.

The past cycle was to some extent "to VC," relying on storytelling to raise funds, while now it is "to liquidity," with Alpha being Binance's anchor to reestablish dominance in liquidity. In an era where VCs are no longer as reliable, communities have dwindled, and product competition has led to homogenization, Binance Alpha may not be the most innovative solution, but it is the most effective way to ride the bubble.

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