On September 15th, the crypto circle was stirred up by a token called ZKC, creating both excitement and anxiety. Who would have thought that the 'star coin', which was refreshing its high point of $1.79 in the morning, with a market value surpassing $350 million and a 24-hour trading volume soaring to $476 million, would suddenly drop in the afternoon, catching investors off guard—with a peak drop of 75%, touching a low of $0.44. The seemingly lively launch of #Boundless Network ultimately turned into a 'dumping crash' triggered by an airdrop.
The starting point of the story was originally 'welfare'. When Boundless launched, a total of 60 million ZKC tokens were released, with 15 million tokens allocated to Binance HODLers in the airdrop. For users who received the airdrop, these tokens were virtually at zero cost. Faced with the explosive surge after the opening, 'cashing out' became the most straightforward choice. When a large number of sell orders flooded the market, the originally booming buy orders could no longer hold up, leading to price plummets on exchanges like Binance, Bybit, and Gate.io. Investors, who just a second ago were fantasizing about 'doubling' their investments, were suddenly dragged into a state of floating losses.
This crash is far more than just 'price fluctuations'; it is more like a mirror reflecting the 'invisible minefields' of new project token economics. Airdrops are indeed a good strategy to attract users, but if the distribution mechanism does not calculate the 'supply-demand balance' well—such as excessive release volume and too many zero-cost chips, once market sentiment turns, the dumping will come quickly and fiercely. For Boundless, this incident is not 'bad luck,' but a warning that must be taken seriously: to retain users, relying solely on airdrops for traffic is not enough; a healthy token model and a reasonable release rhythm are the core to sustaining the project.
For ordinary investors, the story of ZKC should be noted in the 'pitfall manual.' Many people see 'new coins soaring' and want to follow the trend, but often overlook key questions behind it: How are the tokens distributed? Does the team have solid technical support? Will the airdrop chips be concentrated for dumping? These invisible details are often more important than short-term price fluctuations. Just like this time with ZKC, if one had noticed the existence of 15 million zero-cost airdrops in advance, perhaps there would have been more rationality and less impulsiveness.
Finally, I must emphasize once again: I only share project research, and do not provide any investment advice. The cryptocurrency market is inherently volatile, and blindly following the trend is always the most dangerous operation.
