Binance Alpha has fostered value consensus across multiple circles, including project teams, airdrop hunters, and retail investors. Projects now "pay tribute" to Alpha, airdrop hunters mass-produce KYC accounts to embark on new farming campaigns, while retail investors navigate profit opportunities through积分 limits, lucky尾号s, and trading friction.

From its initial launch as the best exit window for meme coins to the early "cash giveaways" of Alpha 2.0, and later the introduction of积分-based user filtering and queued token listings, Binance has gradually reclaimed流量 and pricing power in the on-chain market. Behind this lies Binance's ambition to reorganize the ecosystem through liquidity dominance after losing ground to OKX on the product front.

What Has Alpha Achieved in 5 Months?

In 2024, the crypto market entered a bull run fueled by Bitcoin现货 ETF approvals and the meme coin frenzy. Yet beneath the表面 liquidity recovery, a deeper issue emerged: the定价机制 between primary and secondary markets began failing. VC project valuations became inflated, token launches were delayed, and user participation barriers rose. The eventual listing窗口 often turned into an exit point for projects and early investors, leaving retail investors with the scraps.

Against this backdrop, Binance launched Binance Alpha on December 17, 2024. Initially an experimental feature in the Binance Web3 Wallet for discovering优质 projects, it quickly became Binance's core tool for reclaiming定价权 in the on-chain market.

Binance co-founder He Yi admitted in a community Space that Binance listings suffered from "peaking at launch" and acknowledged that traditional listing mechanisms were unsustainable under current regulatory constraints. Despite尝试 like voting and Dutch auctions, results were mediocre. Thus, Alpha listings became Binance's strategic alternative.

"By placing trending projects in Binance Alpha,观察区 listings don’t guarantee a main站 spot. Only socially beneficial projects can generate revenue, profits, and share rewards with users," He Yi promised.

From December 18 to February 13, Binance Alpha listed over 80 tokens across BSC, Solana, and Base ecosystems, mostly meme and AI tokens. However, the market continued criticizing VC coins for post-listing dumps, and Alpha ironically became the final stop for meme coin expectations.

It wasn’t until early February 2025, starting with BSC’s test token TST, that Alpha unlocked its流量 pipeline. From then on, non-meme tokens like ONDO, MORPHO, and AERO began appearing.

In March, following OKX DEX’s shutdown, Binance Wallet launched Alpha 2.0, integrating Alpha directly into the CEX. Users could now trade Alpha tokens with exchange balances, catapulting Binance Wallet to 80% of crypto wallet交易量 and marking its steepest growth curve.

Projects No Longer Hesitate

From Alpha’s inception, project teams faced a new calculus.

With uncertain main站 listing windows, on-chain community exit pressure, and VC valuation mismatches, teams realized that storytelling, community management, or waiting for traditional listings weren’t enough to secure attention or liquidity.

Instead of clinging to unpredictable paths, they adapted to Alpha’s new paradigm. In Alpha, token flows, airdrop quotas, and trading activity became observable data—potential tickets to a Binance listing. Listing on Alpha also brought market visibility with minimal downside.

Thus, projects quickly recalibrated strategies, dithering less over whether or when to launch and instead crafting "low-cost Binance entry" models tailored to Alpha’s机制.

Backstabbing Communities Becomes Routine

Binance Alpha offers two listing paths: already-circulating tokens or new launches, each with specific metrics. This makes Alpha a transparent, rules-based entry point.

Execution-wise, Alpha’s path to main站现货 listings is highly restrained, with far fewer spots than Binance’s historical pace. This scarcity creates a Web2-style growth flywheel: spending to acquire流量, setting barriers to筛选 users, and optimizing rules to boost retention and生态 strength.

To join, projects often must deploy tokens on BSC, redesign incentives, or sacrifice planned社区 airdrops. Alpha isn’t just a wallet product—it’s a lightweight, centralized on-chain launch protocol, aligning with Binance’s data-driven token selection and risk hedging.

When Base生态’s Zora announced its Alpha debut, a farming群 member quipped, "Don’t expect much—years of grinding might lose to one Alpha play." This proved true: eligible Alpha users received 4,276 ZORA (~$90), while long-time社区 participants got as little as $30 or single-digit tokens.

Similar cases abound. PRAI locked社区 tokens but gave Alpha users ~$100 airdrops for积分 and interactions, skewing fairness. Haedal (Sui生态) ignored early depositors’ costs, favoring Alpha users. MilkyWay (Celestia’s LSD) allotted minimal shares to早期 users, requiring locks and tasks, while Alpha users reaped higher rewards with less effort.

This资源倾斜 toward Alpha users sparked debate but was pragmatic: with limited resources, prioritizing二级 liquidity and platform exposure maximizes efficiency.

Post-Alpha Listing Dynamics

Alpha’s core metric is筹码 supply, aligning with Binance’s "embrace BNB Chain" ethos.

Per KOL AB Kuai.Dong, Puffer mapped 3.16% of its tokens to BNB Chain after seven months, allocating 1.24% to Alpha airdrops and $500K USDC to PancakeSwap liquidity—totaling ~$3M in costs. "A hefty price, but clear returns," AB noted, as Alpha granted direct CEX access, pre-liquidity预热.

Similarly, Polyhedra’s ZKJ entered Alpha as a top-100 token without a main站 listing. To sustain prices, it offered 150% staking yields and积分竞赛, incentivizing trading and wallet activity—a strategy to leverage Alpha metrics for a future Binance listing.

This "on-chain actions →积分→ platform inclusion" loop reshapes Binance-project博弈: where "market cap +社区" once decided listings, "on-chain data + Alpha performance" now主导.

New projects are bolder. Stakestone, since mid-April, allocated 5% via wallet IDO, 1.5% to Alpha users, and 4% to社区 veterans—over 10% total. It also deployed funds to stabilize二级 prices, securing a main站 listing. As insiders say, "Binance now wants data, not stories."

Retail Psychology

Retail investors’ role is more complex.

Traditional打新 let散户 profit via信息敏锐度 and agility. But Alpha’s积分体系 institutionalized profits, making paths透明 yet hyper-competitive. Alpha激活的不是 price speculation but a "积分→ airdrop→ listing springboard" conversion机制.

For some, this redefined fairness: small但活跃 users could earn outsized returns. Per BlockBeats, participating in every Alpha airdrop and wallet活动 since积分 launched yielded ~$1,700.

Yet high rewards come with high barriers. The seemingly open积分 game demands specific behaviors,频率, and persistence. Binance doesn’t airdrop directly but provides积分分发 and user分类 tools. Projects fund airdrops, but Alpha’s机制 decides who qualifies. The goal isn’t "rewards" but "筛选."

Critics argue Alpha’s trading volume diverges from real demand: "No积分, no trades," inflating project data and creating superficial retention. "How is this better than ghost链 or fake game airdrops post-TGE?"

KOL孤鹤 found only 22% of users earned enough积分 via daily trading; others chased volume or quit.

Still, amid scarce liquidity and fleeting attention, Alpha remains a rare "effort = reward" channel. Its allure lies in combining收益 with certainty, shifting散户 logic from value judgment to机制博弈—profits now hinge on understanding Alpha’s rules, not project fundamentals.

Alpha’s True Beneficiaries

Despite散户 and projects博弈, Alpha’s real impact is重构 the platform-asset relationship.

Binance lags behind OKX in product polish but dominates via Alpha’s liquidity funnel. Even for non-Binance-first launches, Alpha’s流量筛选 and积分路径 pre-warm markets and anchor prices, extending Binance’s asset influence.

链游 NXPC exemplified this: Alpha airdrops followed liquidity pool launches, while Binance合约/现货 listings lagged by hours, creating arbitrage windows across exchanges. Alpha’s前置 role in liquidity ignition was clear.

Historically, Binance listings marked定价终点. Now, Alpha is the起点, pulling冷启动 from OKX/Bybit back into Binance’s orbit. Alpha-fueled pumps justify main站 listings, and projects willingly "tribute" tokens and liquidity for exposure—a流量闭环.

This also absolves Binance of "peaking at launch" criticism. CZ once hoped to eliminate listing溢价, letting markets reflect fundamentals. Alpha realizes this by replacing "Binance listing" authority with a liquidity筛选机制, leveling the field and letting on-chain data decide winners.

So far, it works. Alpha isn’t just a wallet feature—it’s Binance’s public, quantifiable asset orchestration system. Unlike OKX’s product-centric approach, Binance trades积分 for流量 and airdrops for attention. As wallet lead Winson said, "The market doesn’t need two identical wallets." Binance重塑 scenes, not products.

Alpha doesn’t purge fake volume or airdrop farming but lets projects prove appeal first, then assess real user bases and depth. In Alpha’s体系, the line between farming and genuine activity is deferred and datafied.

Yet critics argue Alpha attracts farmers, not real traders, and Binance Wallet isn’t users’ first choice for on-chain actions.

Past cycles were "to VC," reliant on narratives. Now, it’s "to liquidity," and Alpha is Binance’s anchor for liquidity dominance. In an era of unreliable VCs, fleeting communities, and product homogenization, Binance Alpha may not be the most innovative solution—but it’s the most effective for capturing bubbles.

(Image captions retained as placeholders for visual context.)