The ZKJ token of the Polyhedra network crashed 63% after a whale dump.
The native token of the Polyhedra network, ZKJ, experienced a devastating flash incident on June 15, where it fell over 63% in less than two hours, resulting in more than $99 million in liquidations and sparking widespread accusations of market manipulation across the crypto community. Whale wallets led to the collapse. According to blockchain tracker Lookonchain, six whale wallets collectively sold 5.23 million ZKJ tokens for about $9.66 million, just before the crash. These wallets had previously removed liquidity from both ZKJ and Koge, swapping Koge for ZKJ and then dumping ZKJ en masse. This aggressive liquidation drained liquidity and triggered a sharp price drop, leading to a wave of forced liquidations of long leveraged positions. Among those liquidated were six traders, each losing more than a million dollars, with ZKJ representing 81.3% of all liquidations in just four hours, according to CoingLass data. ZKJ price crash saw the price of ZKJ drop from $1.98 to a low of $0.7625, representing a decline of over 60% on Coingecko. CoinmarketCap provided an even grimmer scenario, indicating the token could collapse over 80% to $0.33, bringing the token's market cap to below $95 million. Although ZKJ briefly recovered to $1.41, it quickly returned to a range of about $0.80 by midday. What is particularly shocking is that ZKJ had been trading in a relatively stable range between $2.05 and $1.98 for over a month, making the sudden collapse all the more alarming. Koge's connection and community backlash call it a rug pull or pump and dump. All weakened.
On June 15, 2025, Crypto X users rushed to call what many now suspect to be a coordinated "pump and dump" or even a "long-planned harvest operation." A key post by user eth apple claims that the Koge pool ran out of USDT, which left liquidity providers stranded and triggered a large transfer from Koge to ZKJ, ultimately causing both tokens to crash. Eth Apple wrote: "The issue began when the Koge pool ran out of USDT, leaving LPS unable to exit positions." "This led to a mass sell-off from Koge to ZKJ... The Koge team did not add any USDT to the pool."