Author: 1912212.eth, Foresight News
On June 8, Binance Alpha launched Open Loot (OL). The threshold for receiving the airdrop requires at least 233 points, which is the highest score requirement since Binance Alpha adopted the point system. Since June this year, the threshold for Binance Alpha airdrop participation has continued to rise, from just over 200 points to 223, and finally to the current 233 points. What has risen is the score and threshold, and what has fallen behind is the "numb" mentality of market participants.
Since its launch in December 2024, Binance Alpha has attracted countless players with its low threshold, high return airdrops and TGEs, but now the points threshold continues to rise, which makes people wonder: Is this points craze coming to an end? Will it continue to roll?
High-cost gaming: Why it is getting harder
The appeal of Binance Alpha lies in its return potential. According to airdrops.io, in May 2025, the five airdrops issued by the platform brought an average first-day value of $270 per user, and if calculated at historical highs, the total value could reach $656. For example, the 1,500 tokens of SIGN airdrop were worth about $177, and the BOOP and NXPC airdrops also brought considerable benefits to users. Compared with the uncertainty of traditional on-chain airdrops, Binance Alpha's transparent rules and quick cashing mechanism have attracted players.
However, high returns come with high costs. The acquisition of points mainly depends on asset holdings and token purchases. Taking transaction points as an example, buying $2 of Alpha tokens will earn 1 point, and 1 point will be added for each doubling (3 points for $8 and 10 points for $1024).
Now suppose an ordinary retail player has an exchange balance between $10,000 and $100,000, and a daily balance score of 3. According to the trading volume score rule, if an ordinary player wants to get 15 points, the trading volume needs to reach around $32,000, and this is only the requirement for buying (selling does not count towards the points). If a new player starts to increase the trading volume from 0, he needs to persist for at least 13 days to reach the full trading volume to be eligible for the Binance Alpha airdrop. This undoubtedly puts a great test on the capital scale and patience of ordinary retail investors.
In addition, Binance Alpha has also added additional points consumption during the token airdrop process. Usually, each airdrop or participation in the wallet TGE event consumes 15 points. This means that if the points have just reached the standard, then after receiving this airdrop, the next airdrop will have nothing to do with you. This also tests the player's judgment. If the quality of the current airdrop project is average, it is only worth tens of dollars after choosing to receive it, and the time and opportunity cost of missing the "next" airdrop or TGE opportunity of hundreds of dollars will be very large.
The "wear and tear" cost during the transaction process cannot be ignored. Foresight News noted that when trading certain tokens, even if you sell them quickly after buying them, you may still suffer a "loss" of up to tens of dollars. Therefore, when choosing a currency, players need to consider the transaction volume, price fluctuations, etc. Otherwise, they may face a fierce operation, and the income after the airdrop still cannot support the cost.
The MEV issue is also worth paying attention to. If you are unlucky and do not turn on the MEV protection, you may suffer serious losses. According to AI Auntie’s monitoring, on June 8, a user swiped KOGE/USDT and lost $47,000 in a single transaction. He spent 47,000 USDT to buy only 0.009 KOGE, and the cost of a single KOGE was as high as $5.18 million.
However, as long as the airdrop benefits are greater than the wear and tear costs, arbitrageurs will continue to pour in.
A carnival in the studio?
Binance Alpha was officially launched on December 17, 2024. It is positioned as a discovery platform for early Web3 projects and aims to provide users with early opportunities to participate in high-potential tokens. Its core mechanism is the Alpha Points System, which determines the eligibility of users to participate in TGE and airdrops by evaluating their asset holdings (Balance Points) and Alpha token purchases (Volume Points) in the Binance exchange and wallet ecosystem. Points are updated daily, based on asset snapshots and transaction behavior over the past 15 days, and are valid for 15 days.
Initially, the threshold for Alpha points was relatively low. For example, the SIGN airdrop in April 2025 required only a relatively low number of points to participate. However, as the platform attracted more and more users, the threshold for points rose. In May 2025, the BOOP airdrop required 137 points, and the Privasea TGE required 198 points. By June, the Bondex (BDXN) airdrop required 213 points, and Open Loot pushed the threshold to 233 points. Some community users pointed out that a threshold of more than 220 points has become the norm, and if you don't work hard, you may "not be able to eat."
According to the Dune data panel, Binance Alpha's trading volume reached US$2.04 billion on June 8, a record high, and far surpassed competitors such as the Solana chain.
The root cause of this "involution" phenomenon lies in the imbalance between supply and demand. The limited thresholds for Binance Alpha's airdrops and TGE opportunities continue to rise, while the number of participants has surged. It is estimated that the number of qualified people for the Open Loot airdrop is about 10,000, and each person can get 1,836 OL tokens. As arbitrageurs flock in, the platform screens truly active users by raising the points threshold while curbing the behavior of robots brushing points. In June 2025, Binance announced an upgrade to its risk control system, and any use of robots - including but not limited to scripts, automated tools or other non-manual methods - will be considered a violation.
From thousands of dollars to hundreds of dollars, is this the end of Binance Alpha?
In the early stage, because there were not many participating users and there were many projects with higher returns, if ordinary retail investors took the full airdrop, their income would be above $1,000 after deducting costs. However, as the number of users continued to increase and the threshold became higher, their monthly income has dropped from thousands of dollars to around $600. In mid-May, the airdrop income of a certain project was as low as $25, far below user expectations. This shows that the Alpha points game is shifting from "low threshold and high return" to "high threshold and low return", and its appeal to ordinary players is weakening.
The popularity of Binance Alpha has not only changed user behavior, but also had a profound impact on the entire industry ecosystem. On the one hand, Alpha's huge traffic has brought a "spillover effect" to other public chains. Since May, the trading volume of DEX on the Solana chain has increased from US$2.2 billion to US$4.59 billion, partly due to the hot speculation of tokens such as $MOODENG on the Alpha platform. The trading volume of NAVX tokens in the Sui ecosystem has also surged after Alpha was listed, and Alpha's points activities have also injected vitality into emerging public chains to some extent.
On the other hand, Alpha's success has also triggered other exchanges to follow suit. Twitter KOL @_FORAB revealed that exchanges such as Kraken and Bithumb have recognized Alpha's model and may launch similar activities. As competition intensifies, the threshold and cost of airdrops will be further increased, and users may face higher barriers to participation. Binance itself is also constantly adjusting its strategies, such as launching double points activities (double points for purchasing Alpha tokens through the BSC chain or limit orders) to stimulate trading volume. However, this incentive further pushed up the threshold for points and exacerbated "involution".
Faced with high score thresholds and increasingly fierce competition, is Binance Alpha approaching the end? The answer may not be a simple yes or no. User fatigue is evident, and high thresholds and high costs are discouraging newcomers. If returns continue to decline, ordinary users may choose to quit. Robots and arbitrageurs occupy space: Although Binance has upgraded its risk control system, the problem of robot scoring has not been completely solved. This not only undermines fairness, but also increases the operating costs of the platform. In addition, market saturation is also one of the negative factors, and the supply of high-quality projects in the Alpha project may be exhausted. In the long run, it will be difficult for the platform to maintain high-frequency, high-value airdrop activities.
