Recently, $ALPACA's wave of 'delisting and surging tenfold' completely overturned the perceptions of many old-timers in the crypto circle. On the surface, it was an unexpected rebound of a delisted coin, but behind it lies a well-planned, rhythmic, and lethal manipulation script.
Today, let's dive deep into this manipulation show and see how the manipulators wiped out retail investors and shorts amidst information and emotional disparities.
1. Token distribution: concentrated holdings, inherently suitable for manipulation.
First, look at the fundamentals:
$ALPACA has a total of 75,441 holders, but the top 1000 addresses hold the vast majority.
The top 10 addresses account for over 67%, with http://Gate.io holding 21.88% in a single address, Binance's hot wallet holding 10.79%, and one Null address holding 18.75%.
Among them, exchange accounts (Binance, http://Gate.io, OKX, etc.) collectively hold over 40%.
In summary, three points:
High control, liquidity illusion, low on-chain transparency
This distribution makes $ALPACA a paradise for manipulation.
2. Manipulation process: low buy-in, pump, counter-squeeze shorts, a complete harvesting process.
This time, $ALPACA's manipulation is completely different from previous delisted coin tactics, especially combined with two key conditions:
■ Among the four coins delisted this time, only $ALPACA still has Binance contracts to play with.
■ Previous delisted coins were directly sold off, leading everyone to form the habitual thinking 'delisting = profit from shorting'.
The manipulators seized these two points and launched a beautiful counter-offensive.
2.1 Low-level accumulation - using delisting news to scare away retail investors.
Once the Binance delisting announcement was made, most retail investors reflexively sold off and ran.
But this time was different, $ALPACA's bottom market cap was only $6-8 million, and the manipulators were accumulating heavily at low levels, with extremely low costs. At the same time, the controlling accounts locked in circulating chips, making market sell-offs extremely thin.
2.2 Violent pump - spot prices surge, contracts get squeezed, countering the shorts.
The manipulators violently pushed prices up in the spot market, directly creating the 'delisted coin's miraculous rebound' market.
At the same time, they had already laid out a large number of long positions in the futures market.
Everyone, having previously made money from shorting delisted coins, rushed in to short, but were instead blown up by the spot surge, with shorts becoming the fuel for the manipulators' pump.
During this period, the spot and futures exhibited an abnormal phenomenon of **spot-futures price difference exceeding 20%**, further accelerating the chain reaction of shorts being forced out.
2.3 High-level offloading - creating a climax, rapidly clearing positions 【currently ongoing】.
During the pump, retail investors' enthusiasm for chasing highs was ignited, with social platforms flooded with 'the $ALPACA tenfold myth'. The manipulators took the opportunity to offload at high levels on exchanges, quickly clearing positions using exchange accounts. After offloading was completed, they directly dumped the price, causing it to free fall 【profiting from both spot selling and shorts】, with retail investors and shorts both buried.
3. The essence of this manipulation: breaking the inertia of belief, creating misalignment harvest.
The key to the success of this operation lies in:
■ Extremely low trading costs: small market cap, easy to control, cheap to pump.
■ Breaking the inertia of belief: people thought delisted coins must fall, but $ALPACA surged in the opposite direction, wiping out all shorts.
■ Information asymmetry kills: manipulators know they want to pump, while retail investors and shorts think it's just a normal delisting sell-off.
4. How to prevent this kind of manipulative market
■ Spot-futures price difference exceeds 20%, must be vigilant: this is basically a sign of manipulation offloading.
■ Watch the changes in open interest (OI): If OI surges but prices rise, be careful of manipulators laying traps to kill shorts.
■ Set stop losses, don’t get attached to battles: take profits and run, cut losses, dragging will only lead to worse outcomes.
■ Rationally view delisted coins: not every delisted coin can make you profit from shorting, don't use old experiences to trap yourself in new situations.
5. Summary
$ALPACA this time is a typical counter-manipulation case for small-cap coins:
■ Low buy-in, pump, short squeeze, offload, the rhythm flows smoothly.
■ The breakthrough point is: it broke the inertia of the belief that 'delisting must fall'.
■ Retail investors and shorts were caught in a double squeeze, ultimately becoming the nutrients harvested by the manipulators.
#ALPACA #下架代币
