ZKJ and KOGE plummeted over 60%: Was it a carefully orchestrated exit or a market accident?
In the crypto world, tokens that plummet within just a few hours have long been commonplace.
But ZKJ's collapse is particularly special: it was like a rehearsal for a 'pseudo-stablecoin', combining high liquidity, community speculation, and enticing incentives, ultimately plummeting at an uncontrollable speed.
In just one hour, ZKJ fell from $2 to $0.30, evaporating over 83% of its market cap. What truly draws attention is not just the speed of the plunge, but the trading logic behind it.
According to Binance Alpha market data, both ZKJ and KOGE plummeted over 60% within an hour. As of the latest update, ZKJ is priced at $0.78 (24-hour decline of 60.56%), and KOGE is at $23.61 (24-hour decline of 60.75%).
Binance confirmed that it had detected significant price fluctuations in ZKJ and KOGE, stating: 'Preliminary investigations show this was mainly due to multiple exchanges and on-chain whales concentrating their withdrawals of liquidity, along with a series of consecutive liquidations.'
Meanwhile, the KOGE development team 48 Club also responded, stating that KOGE has never had a lock-up mechanism since its launch, nor has it ever promised not to sell tokens from its treasury.
Phase one: ZKJ 'disguised' as a stablecoin
Throughout May, ZKJ performed unusually: trading volatility was extremely low, almost indistinguishable from a stablecoin. Its liquidity peaked at $20 million, with slippage close to zero, and swaps were as smooth as USDC.
More critically, ZKJ was used to participate in Binance Alpha's incentive program—one of the hottest speculative narratives in the market right now. At one point, its market cap even exceeded three times that of the Layer2 project zkSync.
On the surface, ZKJ became synonymous with a 'perfect stablecoin'. But this stability was not based on trust or a sustainable financial model, but merely built on short-term speculative funds and temporary incentives.
Phase two: False prosperity, fragile as paper
The market structure of ZKJ appeared stable: liquidity concentrated, LPs operating in a very narrow range, clear incentives, and community enthusiasm. But in reality:
No clear business model, no actual income generated;
The community lacks stickiness, with most being speculative users attracted by Alpha points.
As long as one big player withdraws, the entire ecosystem could collapse, which is exactly what happened next.
Phase three: Behind the price collapse is liquidity withdrawal
On the evening of June 13, a large address named 0x364…f18e9 withdrew $3.5 million worth of ZKJ-KOGE liquidity pairs and began to sell ZKJ in large quantities. This led to a complete breakdown of the liquidity structure, surging slippage, and the market instantly spiraling out of control.
ZKJ's trading volume surged to $12 million in a short time, and the price plummeted instantly. LP positions began to withdraw, MEV bots started hunting for arbitrage, and KOGE was also implicated due to its binding liquidity with ZKJ.
Within less than an hour afterward, multiple large addresses like 0x1A29… and 0x0781… successively joined the 'selling relay race', with millions of ZKJ being dumped.
Most deadly was: the system just happened to release an additional 15.5 million ZKJ at that time, with supply surging like adding fuel to the fire.
A planned 'exit strategy'
All of this is not a coincidence, but rather a well-organized exit strategy:
The first wallet withdrew millions of dollars in liquidity, then fabricated a large amount of trading volume;
Immediately followed by a rapid sell-off, forming initial selling pressure;
The second wallet repeated the operation, suppressing it again;
The third wallet directly cleared out, completely breaking the market.
Three wallets took turns operating, creating panic, ultimately triggering the unlocking of 15.5 million ZKJ, forming 'the last straw that broke the camel's back.'
It is worth noting that the KOGE team may not have been the instigator; they were just passively affected due to their liquidity depth being too tightly bound to ZKJ. Even before the incident occurred, 48 Club had issued a risk warning on X, as if they had sensed market anomalies.
ZKJ is neither the first nor the last token to collapse in a bubble of speculation, false liquidity, and a lack of foundational models.
In the crypto world, superficially stable 'pseudo-stablecoins' may be more dangerous than real speculative assets.
The final lesson: Short-term gains cannot replace in-depth research, and so-called 'high liquidity' does not equal 'high security.'
