Where is the annual Web3 blockbuster Binance Alpha going?

Recently, many users who contributed volume on Binance Alpha to get Airdrop are shouting "I quit my job." The reason is that at the end of August, the points threshold for the two rounds of new asset Airdrop on Alpha has reached a new high, pushing the "priority claim" and "first come, first served" Airdrop claims up to 260 and 230 respectively.

The high points of points and users shouting "withdraw" are similar to the atmosphere of the Alpha market in May and June this year. Later, after the implementation of the "points consumption" and "points tier" rules, the enthusiastic users of Alpha in July were able to stabilize, which also pushed the trading volume of Binance Alpha to the level of 10 billion dollars.

Nowadays, the scenario of high volume and high threshold for receiving is reappearing. Alpha is increasingly becoming a platform that tests user loyalty. After low-scoring users consider giving up, where will Alpha go next?

On September 4th, the Alpha point rules were upgraded again. New projects for Airdrop/TGE will have a 30-day "newbie support period," during which users buying these new tokens will earn points based on "super doubling" of volume. Tokens on the BSC chain will receive a 4x volume bonus, while other chains will receive a 2x bonus. This rule will increase users' volume point rewards, but users also need to be aware of the volatility risks of the new tokens.

This rule's "differentiated treatment" of the BSC chain and other chains once again reveals Binance's intention to support Alpha in the Web3 market.

In just over half a year, Binance Alpha has launched over a hundred Airdrop events, and the increase in volume and liquidity brought about by these incentives has made the platform seem even more attractive than the main Binance site, resembling a small alternative market.

As Binance improves its new "outpost," Alpha examines various Web3 projects in the real trading market for Binance. Looking at the performance of Alpha's Airdrop tokens over the past 3 months, there have been 3-4 projects each month that, after entering the Binance main site, have shown a "blockbuster trend," changing the predicament of project tokens "peaking upon listing on Binance" earlier this year.

The recently launched Alpha 2.0 market-making program by Binance reveals that this segment, which has evolved from the Web3 Wallet, is trying to make Alpha into a larger "cake."

Why is the Alpha Points "Extra Large Cup"?

On August 28, the two projects that raised the Alpha Airdrop point threshold are DOLO and BLUM.

First, the DOLO was adopted with a phased points distribution, and the points exposure in the "priority claim" phase was 260 points, the highest since the launch of the Alpha Airdrop; the threshold for the second stage of "first come, first served" also increased, rising by 30 points from the previous 200 points that had remained unchanged for 11 consecutive periods.

Users waiting for high-scoring players to finish claiming the DOLO and then receive the next BLUM Airdrop did not expect that the threshold for this round of airdrop, which is "first come, first served," was pushed to 230 points.

While some people are shouting on social media "I can't play anymore," "I'm quitting," others are converting the DOLO and BLUM Airdrop into $48 and $28, respectively.

The high airdrop threshold suggests that Alpha's trading activity remains robust. According to CoinMarketCap data, two weeks ago, the overall market capitalization of Binance Alpha tokens was $17.4 billion, with a volume of $8.83 billion. Following the launch of new tokens, the trading volume in this sector increased to $10.015 billion the following week, maintaining a market capitalization level of $17.1 billion. As of September 4, its trading volume was $8.813 billion, with a market capitalization of $17.93 billion.

As of September 4, the volume of Binance Alpha is 8.813 billion USD

Points are high, and traders and score boosters are still present; this was a scene that played out as early as when Alpha was running in May and June, accompanied by Binance's dynamic adjustment measures for two consecutive months.

Essentially, Alpha Points is an initiative aimed at rewarding users for actively participating in the Binance ecosystem, officially launched on April 25 of this year. It allows users to accumulate points based on both balance and volume metrics, and users can claim new Airdrop tokens once they meet the point standards. Prior to this, some users had keenly seized early opportunities, earning a substantial amount of token Airdrops with only a small number of trades before the points system was introduced, quietly accumulating over ten thousand yuan in profits within a month, with a "daily wage" of nearly a thousand yuan.

On the day the points system was launched, the number of active users of the Binance wallet surged by over 58%—from 44,967 to 71,228, and the volume also doubled within 24 hours—from $48.46 million to $118 million.

Involution has begun. Binance has also been dynamically balancing the reward distribution for participants by iterating on the points rules; at the same time, it strengthens risk control and anti-cheating measures to maintain the fairness of activities.

In May, as the threshold for claiming points from the Alpha Airdrop was seen rising from double digits in April to nearly 200 points, on May 13, Binance upgraded the Alpha points system, introducing a "consumption mechanism," where users need to actually consume 15 points when confirming participation in Alpha or TGE.

To reduce points and lower the threshold, Binance is attempting to adjust the rules towards contributing to inclusivity, curbing excessively high points to allow newcomers to "get on board." However, the "point consumption" has truly lowered the threshold to around 200 points, which took about half a month. This roughly corresponds to the 15-day accumulation cycle of points.

User @Mingo shared his earnings on social media, with the 24th period Alpha and TGE Airdrop giving him a monthly income of $1795 after deducting $133.5 in trading costs, making his "monthly salary" exceed 10,000. On his bill, the minimum single-period earnings were worth $70. The hot project NXPC (MapleStory) had an entry threshold of 187 points, which pushed many users' single-number earnings up to $600 or even over a thousand, setting a historical record for Alpha Airdrop earnings and undoubtedly becoming @Mingo's highest "daily salary" that month.

Image from Binance user @Mingo Mingo's sharing on social media

Undoubtedly, the high returns of the Alpha Airdrop in its early stages continuously attract users to participate. However, the studio operating as a team has been viewed by ordinary users as a major enemy that undermines the fairness of the Alpha Airdrop. On social networks, photos of multiple phones competing for Alpha and recruitment advertisements for studios seeking dedicated airdrop grabbers have circulated widely.

To this end, Binance is carrying out a cleanup. In early June, certain teams were detected by Binance using bots to participate in Alpha activities. The company made it clear that any behavior using bots (including but not limited to scripts, automated tools, or other non-manual methods) will be considered "violations". The risk control system has been upgraded to enhance the detection and handling of violations, and accounts that trigger risk control will have their eligibility to participate in Alpha points revoked.

On the "Square" social section within Binance, many people have reported receiving violation reminders, with some successfully appealing and others failing to appeal.

However, the threshold for direct Airdrop rewards for users with an active user base of over 100,000 per week will be raised to between 210 and 251 in June.

Starting from June 19, Binance has once again iterated its points rule. The Alpha Airdrop will adopt a two-phase distribution mechanism. In the first phase, a high points priority threshold is set within a limited time for priority redemption. In the second phase, the points requirement will be lowered to a certain extent, and distribution will be based on a first-come, first-served principle for eligible users.

After the launch of the segmented points accumulation rules, many users found that when claiming /抢Airdrop, they need to "pass device tests". In addition to facial recognition, a slider to prove you are human has been introduced.

Binance has once again strengthened its ability to detect cheating by bots, and the Alpha points in July remained relatively stable. In the 31st Alpha Airdrop (excluding TGE), the highest score for "priority claim" was 234, which only appeared in the first PEAQ airdrop, with a single number earning around 45 USD; the lowest score was 210, which were from the BGSC at the beginning of the month and RCADE on July 10, both with single number earnings around 40 USD; while the threshold for "first come, first served" experienced a range of 120-190 points, it has basically stabilized at 200 points.

According to a user feedback, after struggling to accumulate to a high threshold of 240 points, he received 5 rounds of Airdrop in July, with a net profit of around 240 dollars after deducting costs, averaging about 48 dollars per round. "It's obviously much lower compared to the previous two months."

In August, the "first come, first served" threshold, which was mainly marked at 200 points, is being broken by the end of the month at 230 points. The internal competition of the Alpha Airdrop is still ongoing, and a data point from Dune shows that the weekly active users of Binance Wallet transactions have risen from over 120,000 at the beginning of the month to more than 180,000 by the end of the month.

On September 4th, the Alpha Points update volume rules

Finally, on September 4th, Alpha once again adjusted the point rules, adding the "Point Plus" gameplay, which implements a "super doubling" of points based on trading volume for airdrops / TGE of new tokens, achieving a trading volume boost within 30 days, while also providing an "accelerator" for users who are keen on accumulating points and obtaining airdrops, increasing point returns.

The "30 Days Volume Doubling Period" rule, according to KOL @BitHappyX, "is a redistribution of resources and benefits": while restricting the studio's arbitrage model, it tilts resources and traffic towards real participating users and new projects.

He explained that since the old coins only retained 1x volume points, this would cut off the studio's channel to obtain points through large-scale sweeping on the sideways old coins, compressing its arbitrage space; while the new coins enjoy point bonuses, the price volatility in the first month (within 30 days) is often large. Although ordinary users will also face risks, studios pursuing high points and heavily investing will obviously bear higher financial risks.

He predicts that under the circumstances where old coins have insufficient point advantages and new coins have significantly increased risks, some studios will be forced to abandon "fake activity" and even directly exit Alpha.

As Winson Liu, the Global Head of Binance Wallet, emphasized, "Through participation in rewards, we provide a fairer way for truly loyal users of Alpha to engage, while also enabling Binance Alpha to support more high-quality Web3 projects."

Does the "Selection Pool" work for listing on Binance?

After running for more than 8 months, Binance Alpha has distributed over a hundred Airdrops. When the volume in this sector broke 10 billion dollars, the continuously increasing volume indicated that this ecosystem strongly stimulated user interest, allowing Alpha to form a momentum cycle independent of the traditional altcoin market, using this hardcore metric to continuously validate market projects for Binance.

In fact, as early as December last year, when Binance announced the launch of Alpha, it intended to cultivate the on-chain DEX within the Binance wallet as a new token selection pool on the main site. Although there is no guarantee that the Alpha token will definitely be listed on the main site, the cases at the beginning of the year where certain projects conducted exclusive TGEs (Token Generation Events) in the Binance wallet and were listed on the main site have strengthened the outside world's impression of Alpha as a "token candidate area."

At that time, Binance was troubled by public opinion issues such as "poor quality of listed coins" and "girlfriend coins," which forced co-founder He Yi to respond to doubts multiple times, repeatedly publicly stating the listing standards and emphasizing "strict selection." Binance also initiated the "vote to list/unlist coins" rule for this purpose.

Although Binance later intended to slow down the pace of new listings, the downward trend of most new assets "peaking upon launch" has not been effectively improved.

Against this backdrop, Binance Alpha officially "went live for testing", and the results proved that no promise is better than turning user demands into effective products and experiences, which is also what Binance excels at.

On March 18, Binance Alpha 2.0 was born by integrating into the main site, breaking the boundaries between centralized exchange platforms (CEX) and Web3 wallets, allowing CEX users to directly purchase various newly emerged early project tokens on-chain using assets such as USDT and USDC within the site.

Winson Liu clearly stated, "The Binance Alpha platform serves as a token selection pool prior to listing, aiming to enhance the transparency of the listing process on Binance exchange. By publicly recommending selected early projects, the Alpha platform can strengthen community trust and provide users with insights into tokens with potential for future development in the Binance ecosystem."

As the number of Alpha tokens increases, the projects in the selection pool are becoming more numerous. Has the launch on the Binance main site exploded due to the surge of new tokens? Have these projects selected by Alpha brought improvements to Binance's coin listings?

As of September 4th, CoinmarketCap has recorded a total of 274 token projects listed and traded on Binance Alpha. Based on the official data from Binance on August 18th and subsequent updates, among the projects listed on Alpha, 177 tokens have conducted TGE/Airdrop/Booster activities, accounting for 64.6%; of these, 26 have entered the spot market on Binance's main site, accounting for 14.6%, and 77 have been listed on the contract market, accounting for 43.5%.

The conversion rate of Alpha Airdrop tokens to the spot market is 14.6%

According to the statistics reported by DWF Labs in June, at that time, 18 out of more than 190 tokens in the Binance Alpha sector were listed on the Binance main site’s spot market, with a conversion rate of 9.5%. Two months later, among 274 Alpha tokens, only 26 were listed on the spot market, with a conversion rate still at 9.48%.

It can be seen that even with Alpha as the pre-selection pool, Binance still maintains an almost unchanged conversion rate under the "strict selection" standard.

Looking at the Alpha tokens launched on the Binance main site, the vast majority have conducted TGE/Airdrop/Booster activities, with airdrops being the most frequent and the channel with the most tokens listed on Binance's spot or futures market.

Beehive Tech has counted 107 Airdrop tokens launched by Binance Alpha over the three months from June to September, with a total of 13 tokens listed on Binance's main spot market + futures market, and 19 tokens listed solely on the futures market.

Alpha Airdrop tokens performed after listing on Binance spot

（Data statistics as of September 4th, 16:30）

From the trend of these 13 Alpha tokens listed on the Binance spot market, as of September 4, 8 tokens have fluctuated with the market correction in the overall downturn of the current cryptocurrency market. However, the current prices of PROVE, ERA, SAHARA, and SPK remain strong, with an increase of 1-5 times compared to the opening price, among which SPK has the highest increase, reaching 501%. Only 3 tokens have significantly (over 10% drop) fallen below the opening price on the first day, with RESOLV, which was launched in June, performing the worst, down 51.8% from the issuance price.

Among the 13 projects, 9 tokens' ATH (All-Time High) increased by over 100% compared to the opening price on the first day, with the minimum increase also above 40%. The ATH of PROVE, SAHARA, ERA, and SPK increased by 540%, 737%, 928%, and 1922% respectively compared to their opening prices on Binance spot.

If we use the closing price on the day of the Alpha Airdrop as a reference, excluding the earliest launched LA (-9.1%), the remaining tokens have still managed to achieve a minimum increase of 20% after their Airdrop and subsequent launch on the Binance spot market. The spot ATH of TREE, SPK, and C has risen by 123%, 476%, and 245% respectively compared to the closing price on the day of the Alpha Airdrop, demonstrating the support capability of the Binance ecosystem for project tokens.

The performance of this new coin has greatly surpassed the new projects launched by Binance at the end of last year, breaking the "vicious cycle" of new projects frequently breaking below the issue price on Binance. It can be seen that the combination of Alpha and the strategy of launching coins through an Airdrop is indeed producing a "selection" effect.

Accelerating Towards the Core Web3 Market

As more and more projects emerge, the situation of "going live means reaching the peak" has now appeared in the Alpha trading area. This also aligns with the market characteristics of Alpha, a new emerging board on Web3: projects are relatively early, and on-chain liquidity is poor.

But Binance plans to make changes.

First, there is the new Alpha points regulation on September 4, which focuses more on newly launched projects, expected to bring real volume from the market, and will once again amplify Binance's "one fish multiple eats" effect.

From the rules, BSC, which occupies the mainstream issuance chain in Alpha tokens, is still the ecosystem that Binance focuses on supporting, channeling traffic to BNBChain with "4 times the volume" incentive (previously unlimited time, 2 times). On-chain activity and fee revenue are expected to rise as a result; the trading efficiency and price performance of new project tokens in the Alpha trading area may also improve as user trading participation increases.

In addition to improving the trading performance of new tokens from the traffic level, on August 28, Binance officially announced the launch of the Alpha 2.0 Limit Order Market Maker Program, inviting users with extensive trading experience in DEX to join, offering zero trading fees for limit buy/sell orders and exclusive API access for Alpha, among other benefits.

Binance is leveraging its strategic advantages gained from years of deep engagement in CEX to address the "liquidity" shortfall for Alpha as a core market in Web3, while its strengths have gradually become apparent over the past six months.

Since Alpha has attracted a large number of users to participate in trading through Airdrop and trading competition rewards, the number of active users of Binance Wallet has ranked among the top in the global mainstream Web3 wallets. In addition, most of the tokens launched on the Binance Alpha platform come from the BNBChain, and among the Airdrop tokens from June to August, 77% of the tokens came from the BNBChain.

Messari's latest BNBChain Q2 2025 report shows that BNBChain maintained strong growth in the second quarter, with user activity and on-chain transactions reaching all-time highs. Daily active addresses and volume saw significant increases, DeFi activity remained robust, and DEX volume, as well as stablecoin transaction counts and active users, ranked first across the entire chain, solidifying its leading position in the Web3 ecosystem.

Among them, in terms of market value and investor confidence, BNB's market value increased by 7.5% quarter-on-quarter, reaching $92.6 billion; in terms of on-chain transactions and activity levels, as transaction fees fell by 90% to 0.1 gwei, BNBChain's average daily transaction volume increased by 101.9% quarter-on-quarter to 9.9 million transactions, and the average daily active addresses grew by 33.2% to 1.6 million; in May, the number of new addresses was 17 million; in terms of DEX performance, it ranked first in transaction volume across the chain, with an average daily transaction volume of $3.3 billion in Q2, of which PancakeSwap, which bore a large transaction matching capacity for Alpha trading, achieved a market share of 85.1%.

Active users, soaring traffic, and DEX volume are attracting project teams to build on BNBChain. An OG in the crypto asset community openly suggested that innovative projects deploy directly on BNBChain, "Low transaction fees and high traffic are what early projects aspire to the most, and BNBChain can almost meet all of these needs now. Project tokens also have a chance to enter Alpha and even receive support from Binance. Why not?"

Winson Liu, the Global Head of Binance Wallet, believes that the surge in volume represents a change in the way users interact with Web3. "Binance Alpha is redefining how users discover early projects and receive tangible rewards – we are setting a new standard for priority engagement for Web3 users."

The DEX functionality in the Binance Web3 wallet is gradually becoming an important section of the main site, and Alpha is developing toward the core product direction of Web3, which is evident from the richness of the interface.

Initially, Alpha displayed trading features like spot and contract trading from Binance alongside on mobile; later, due to the emergence of the points system, a separate Airdrop interface was created, similar to Launchpool; and then, this interface not only included Airdrops but also allowed users to directly access trading competitions, wealth management, TGE, Bootser tasks, and other interfaces with one click, effectively integrating the functionalities favored by users from the Binance Web3 wallet into a single interface.

Now, users no longer need to enter their wallet address on third-party websites to calculate the volume for accumulating points; Alpha provides a direct estimate for users' points reference.

Now, the project landing on Alpha is achieving effects close to going live on Binance's main site - gaining the best exposure for projects, capturing the super strong traffic of top platforms, and obtaining effective market liquidity. Binance Alpha is also increasingly taking shape as the core market of Web3. The new rule of doubling the volume to deliver points to users also means that new listings on Alpha will continue, and when this pie gets bigger, "Airdrop" will have the opportunity to become a continuous benefit for users.