Make small profits, suffer big losses. It's all a bubble, just a momentary flash of fireworks.
At the dull end of the weekend market, the crypto market once again staged a thrilling scene. On the evening of June 15, 2025, at 20:30, the two tokens with the largest trading volume on the BSC chain of the Binance Alpha platform, ZKJ and KOGE, experienced a cliff-like decline.
The token ZKJ of Polyhedra Network plummeted from 1.946 USD, reaching a low of 0.3767 USD within just two hours, with a maximum decline of an astonishing 80.64%, and market capitalization plummeting to only 230 million USD. Meanwhile, KOGE also fell from 61 USD to a low of 8.46 USD within half an hour, with a similarly shocking decline.
Market impact and chain reaction.
Coinglass data shows that between 20:00 and 22:00 that night, the total amount of liquidations across the network reached 102 million USD, with ZKJ alone contributing 94.336 million USD in liquidations, and long positions liquidated up to 93.6878 million USD, forming a typical bull trap.
For ordinary participants, the losses were particularly heavy. Users who engaged in wash trading just to earn Binance Alpha points suffered devastating blows. For example, with an investment of 1,000 USD, users who panic-sold at an 80% drop in ZKJ averaged losses of about 800 USD, which is close to the earnings of 10 Binance Alpha airdrops. Some users reported that their initial plan to accumulate points through small trades with a 5,000 USD investment was reduced to less than 500 USD after the flash crash, resulting in a net loss of 4,500 USD. This once again confirms the saying, 'Make small profits, suffer big losses.'
It is worth noting that ZKJ's trading price had maintained around a 2 billion USD fully diluted valuation (FDV) for several months, showing an unusually stable trend—with liquidity exceeding 20 million USD, almost like a 'stablecoin', and consistently ranking first in the Binance Alpha points ranking. This irrational price performance now seems to be the calm before the storm.
Warning signals before the crash.
In fact, signs of a crash had emerged the previous day. The prices of ZKJ and KOGE experienced slight fluctuations yesterday, with analysts pointing out that the initial decline of ZKJ and KOGE stemmed from a specific address (starting with 0x364) withdrawing 1.29 million ZKJ and 8,667 KOGE from OKX, followed by a sell-off.
Market observers noted that 'the 3% fluctuation of KOGE and ZKJ yesterday is a countdown to the crash. Price fluctuation → fewer wash traders → APY plummets → LPs withdraw liquidity → spot market crashes → more people withdraw liquidity. When the negative spiral begins, it is like an avalanche, unrelated to the quality of the project itself.'
More surprisingly, the 48 Club team behind KOGE stated upon the initial price fluctuations: 'KOGE has been fully released since day one, with no lock-up. The 48 Club has never promised not to sell treasury holdings. Investors should do their own research, and bear the risk themselves.' This statement was later interpreted by many investors as a disguised 'crash warning.'
In-depth reason analysis.
According to the detailed research of on-chain analyst AI Yi, the flash crash of ZKJ and KOGE exhibited characteristics of a carefully planned harvesting operation. Three main addresses targeted the massive trading volume and liquidity formed by the two tokens under the Binance Alpha background, achieving consecutive crashes of both tokens through 'large liquidity withdrawals + continuous sell-offs':
An address starting with 0x1A2 withdrew approximately 3.76 million USD in KOGE and 532,000 USD in ZKJ twice between 20:28 and 20:33, subsequently converting 45,470 KOGE into ZKJ worth 3.796 million USD, and sold off 1.573 million ZKJ in batches.
A second key address withdrew approximately 2.07 million USD in KOGE and 1.38 million USD in ZKJ liquidity, while also selling 1 million ZKJ.
The third address conducted a liquidation operation after receiving 772,000 ZKJ transferred from the second address, further exacerbating the downward trend of ZKJ.
It is worth noting that the crypto community had previously popularized the operational strategy of 'ZKJ-KOGE wash trading with low wear' during participation in the Binance Alpha airdrop activities, which precisely laid the groundwork for this harvesting operation.
Strategic considerations of the crash sequence.
The operators' choice to first crash KOGE and then ZKJ was not random. The primary reason is that ZKJ has contract trading, allowing operators to short on the exchange while simultaneously crashing the price on-chain, achieving dual profits. Secondly, from a liquidity perspective, ZKJ has relatively more liquidity, requiring more capital for crashing, making it more economical to start with the weaker liquidity of KOGE.
The mechanism of delayed price crash.
As well-known tokens with 'good liquidity + stable prices' in the Binance Alpha ecosystem, ZKJ and KOGE caused LPs (liquidity providers) to generally set extremely narrow price ranges. Once a large sell-off breaks through this narrow range, there isn't enough capital in the market to absorb the sell orders, inevitably triggering a flash crash. More critically, when LPs see the price drop, it often leads to panic selling, further exacerbating the vicious cycle of price collapse. For those LPs who are slow to react, the end result is passive holding of a large amount of depreciated ZKJ and KOGE tokens.
Precision of timing choice.
AI Yi speculates that the significant decline in trading volume for Binance Alpha over several days may have been the key incentive for operators to choose this moment to crash the prices. For significant LPs, 'running fast' is often the survival rule. Especially considering that there are few true long-term believers among the holders of ZKJ and KOGE, most participants are only in it for high interest, making the entire ecosystem extremely fragile, like a building that can collapse with the break of a single load-bearing column.
Sixteen days before the incident, these two projects had jointly established the ZKJ/KOGE trading pair and liquidity pool on the Pancake platform, accumulating tokens worth 30 million USD. However, as altcoins within the Alpha ecosystem, once the price of one coin crashes, it easily triggers a chain sell-off of the other coin, forming a 'domino effect.'
Additionally, on the news front, Polyhedra Network (ZKJ) plans to unlock approximately 15.53 million tokens on June 19 at 8:00 AM, accounting for 5.04% of the current circulation, worth about 30.3 million USD. This upcoming unlocking pressure may also be one of the catalysts for the crash.
Overall, this flash crash was the result of careful planning at the technical operational level, combined with objective pressures from market fundamentals, resulting from multiple factors overlapping.