In fact, during the previous rounds of competition, Binance's layout has been somewhat slow, for example, during the inscription period, OKX Wallet seized the opportunity early (Binance Wallet only entered the inscription market in April 2024, and within a few months the inscription market cooled down). In the last Meme season and AI season, the Solana ecosystem was evidently at the core of liquidity and volatility, especially as markets like PumpFun continued to become massive pumps, while BNB Chain, backed by the giant Binance, remained lukewarm, lacking standout coins and vibrant trading markets.

On the other hand, the rise of on-chain derivatives markets is also impacting Binance, including the emergence of platforms like HyperliquidX, which is attracting a wave of users and funds to the chain. Therefore, under the pressure from multiple fronts, Binance is actually feeling quite a pinch. Thus, the launch of Binance Alpha in December last year clearly indicates its intention:

Therefore, I believe its strategic significance can be summarized into several points

1) Activating the vast user trading activity and liquidity on the platform

Binance CEX itself does not lack users (250 million registered users) or funds, but what it lacks is the factors to fully mobilize the trading activity of these users and the liquidity of the funds, especially to guide these coin-holding users into its own chain ecosystem. Therefore, Alpha 2.0 introduces a points mechanism and uses TGE, Alpha airdrops, and IDOs as catalysts, hoping to encourage more coin-holding users to participate in trading in the Alpha area, especially to bring liquidity to the Alpha area.

We have seen that after 2.0, especially with the introduction of the points system, the trading effects brought to the Binance Alpha trading area have been extremely significant. Since the first TGE event requiring points on the 25th, trading volume has surged significantly, and the more intense the trading, the better the results.

2) Bringing volume to BNB Chain, revitalizing its ecosystem, and supporting more of its own chain projects

The purpose of Binance Alpha directing traffic to BNB Chain and revitalizing its ecosystem to support more of its own chain projects is quite clear. In the earliest 1.0 phase, we could easily find that the proportion of coins launched on BNB Chain on Alpha was relatively high, especially at the current stage where more than 70% of the 124 Alpha projects launched are based on BNB Chain tokens, of which 38% are native BNB Chain projects in popular fields such as AI, Meme, and DeFi.

Leading in trading volume: BSC tokens account for about 40% of total trading volume on Alpha, with weekly trading volume skyrocketing by 122.5% and weekly trading amount increasing by 78%, highlighting a strong ecosystem momentum.

Additionally, many policies are also inclined towards BNB Chain, such as the double points policy launched on May 1st, which directly encourages users to trade on BNB Chain, hoping to further bring liquidity to BNB Chain and attract users. From the data, using the May 9 data provided by Lookonchain:

  • In early May, among the top 10 newly active Alpha tokens, 90% were based on BNB Chain, with the new user adoption rate for 6 projects exceeding 20%.

  • In the first week of May, approximately 4.3 million new addresses were added to BNB Chain, with the daily number of new addresses exceeding 1 million for two consecutive days. The daily active address count surpassed 2 million, and the total number of independent addresses reached 552 million.


Moreover, the growth of trading data for Alpha assets on the BNB Chain can also illustrate the issue.

3) Capturing user traffic and liquidity from other chains

Alpha also aims to capture user traffic, liquidity, and attention from other chains, especially 'old rival' Solana. The proportion of tokens launched on Solana within Alpha is also relatively high, particularly some popular tokens on Solana such as ai16z, etc. Besides Solana, Ethereum and Base also have many quality assets worth noting in the Meme and AI tracks, so the Alpha platform is expected to further seize active users, attention, and liquidity from other chains (especially in the current stage, where there is an overall lack of hotspots and FOMO narratives).

4) Incremental users

Alpha point farming has actually brought in many new users. On one hand, point farming is not difficult as long as the rules are clear; it’s not as tough and costly as increasing transaction volume on Layer 2. Many point farming users will bring friends and family into the fold, which provides a key opportunity for many users to access the Binance platform and become crypto investors. Although there is currently no clear data showing how much trading volume has been brought in, we can find some clues from the number of newly registered addresses on BNB Chain.

5) Restructuring the Coin Listing Mechanism

Additionally, I think it relates to restructuring Binance's coin listing mechanism. The previously controversial Binance coin listing incident ('friend group' manipulating the coin listing process) saw the top official personally debunk rumors and state that they would strengthen the transparency and fairness of coin listings. Thus, Alpha now serves as a good example, providing many community-based, meme-type, and small to medium-sized crypto projects with a pathway to reach a broader base of investors and strive for listing on Binance.

Of course, after Alpha 2.0, when the Alpha area was integrated into the APP, trading Alpha area tokens became more convenient. I even think that from the user's perception perspective, it may not be much different from launching on the main site, so the previous Alpha area effect was actually quite good and could bring considerable volume to the projects.