Many people are foolishly brushing alpha points. How can a girl fall from the sky? You are eyeing other people's profits, and the banker is eyeing your principal!
What do you think of Binance ZKJ and KOGE starting the harvesting mode? How to avoid pitfalls and arbitrage at the same time?
In view of the plunge of ZKJ and KOGE and the potential risks of the Alpha points system, combined with the current situation of the cryptocurrency circle, the following are key analyses and arbitrage strategies to avoid pitfalls:
1. The essence of Alpha points: Three truths about the sugar-coated trap
The fatigue battle mechanism of "perpetual scoring"
Points are reset every 15 days, and continuous trading is required to maintain eligibility, creating a sense of pressure that “points will be reset to zero if you don’t swipe.”
Participating in airdrops requires points (e.g. DOOD airdrops consume 15 points), which in turn forces repeated investment.
The reality of high cost and low return for score-boosting
The recent airdrop threshold has reached 205 points, requiring daily trading of 4096U or holding 10,000U, but most tokens have poor liquidity and slippage losses are as high as 0.14%-0.5%.
Although the BNB chain supports double counting of transaction volume, tokens with insufficient depth (such as ZKJ/KOGE) are easily manipulated.
Project quality varies
The Alpha observation zone has become a cash-out channel for low-quality projects. For example, the KiloEx team only reserved 5% of tokens for public sale, and the price fell below the issue price as soon as they were launched.
2. Analysis of the plunge of ZKJ and KOGE: Textbook-level harvesting scene
Team control + no lock-up trap
The KOGE team 48 Club publicly stated that "the treasury holdings are not locked and can be sold at any time", and the token price plummeted by 60% on the day of release.
On-chain monitoring showed that a huge amount of tokens were transferred to the exchange before the crash, in conjunction with short selling contracts, which was suspected to be insider trading.
Liquidity Crisis and Security Vulnerabilities
A similar project, KiloEx, lost 7 million U due to an oracle vulnerability, exposing the team's nature of focusing more on marketing than security.
ZKJ did not disclose the details of the contract audit, and the insufficient depth of the pool increased the risk of price volatility.
3. Avoiding pitfalls and arbitrage strategies: Using rules to fight against the sickle
(1) The Iron Law of Anti-Harvesting
Avoid high-risk token characteristics：
✅ Avoid fully releasing unlocked tokens (such as KOGE);
✅ Reject projects with undisclosed audits and liquidity pools less than 1 million U;
✅ Be wary of coins that have inflated community popularity but empty technical documentation.Alpha Points Rational Participation：
⚠️ Use only idle funds to avoid trading high-slippage tokens for score-boosting;
⚠️ Give priority to low-loss currencies on the BSC chain (such as PORT3, with a measured single-transaction loss of 0.14U).
(2) Capturing arbitrage opportunities
Hedge for a rebound after a sharp drop:
If the fundamentals of the token have not collapsed (such as investment by well-known institutions), build positions in batches after the price is cut in half, and use perpetual contract short positions for hedging, and take profits when the price rebounds by 3%-5%.
Mechanical execution of futures-cash arbitrage:
Use Binance's "Smart Arbitrage" tool to automatically hedge and earn funding rates (for example, if you invest 1,000U, your daily income will be about 0.3U).
Inter-exchange price difference arbitrage:
Monitor the price difference of ZKJ/KOGE on Binance, OKX and other platforms. When the price difference is greater than 2%, cross-exchange arbitrage is carried out (withdrawal fees need to be calculated).
(3) Long-term and stable alternatives
A[Low risk return] --> B(Exchange investment-USDT annualized 5%-8%)
A --> C (futures-cash arbitrage - annualized 10%-15%)
A --> D (cross-exchange stablecoin arbitrage - monthly income 2%-3%)
IV. Conclusion
Alpha points are a tool for exchanges to activate liquidity, not a benefit; the ZKJ/KOGE incident once again proves: no lock-up + high control = pre-harvest. Retail investors need to adhere to two principles:
Never FOMO: Be wary of the rhetoric of "getting rich by cheating on your scores" and use data to calculate the cost;
Reverse harvesting with tools: Futures-cash arbitrage and quantitative tools can transform systemic risks into stable returns.
There is no Lin Daiyu in the cryptocurrency circle, only bloody chips - only those who are sober are hunters. 🔍
