Binance Alpha airdrop threshold soars - are the good days for retail investors coming to an end?

Author: 1912212.eth, Foresight News

On June 8, Binance Alpha launched Open Loot (OL). The threshold for airdrops requires at least 233 points, which is the highest score requirement since Binance Alpha adopted the points 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 continued rise in the points threshold makes people wonder: Is this points craze approaching its end? Will it continue to roll?

High-cost gaming: Why it’s getting harder

Binance Alpha’s appeal lies in its potential for returns. 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 the 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 the transaction volume points as an example, buying $2 of Alpha tokens will earn you 1 point, and 1 point will be added for each doubling (3 points for $8, 10 points for $1024).

Now assume that an ordinary retail player has an exchange balance between $10,000 and $100,000, and the daily balance points are 3. According to the transaction volume points rule, if an ordinary player wants to get 15 points, the transaction 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 transaction volume from 0, he needs to persist for at least 13 days to reach the maximum transaction 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 added additional points consumption in the process of airdropping tokens. Usually, 15 points are consumed for each airdrop or participation in the wallet TGE event. 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 target is average, it will only be worth tens of dollars after choosing to receive it, and the time and opportunity costs will be very large if you miss the "next" airdrop or TGE opportunity of hundreds of dollars.

The "wear and tear" cost during the transaction process cannot be ignored. Foresight News noted that when trading a certain part of the tokens, even if they are sold quickly after purchase, they may still suffer a "loss" of up to tens of dollars. Therefore, when players choose a currency, they need to consider the transaction volume, rise and fall, etc. Otherwise, they may face a fierce operation, and the income after the airdrop still cannot support the cost.

The MEV problem is also worthy of attention. 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 a single transaction was clamped for 47,000 US dollars. 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 US dollars.

However, as long as the airdrop income is greater than the wear and tear cost, 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 participation opportunities 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 trading 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 only required a low score 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 raised the threshold to 233 points. Some community users pointed out that the 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 it far surpassed competitors such as Solana Chain.

The root cause of this "involution" phenomenon lies in the imbalance between supply and demand. Binance Alpha's airdrop and TGE opportunities are limited, and the threshold is constantly raised, 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 score threshold, while curbing the behavior of robot score brushing. In June 2025, Binance announced an upgrade of 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, the end of Binance Alpha?

In the early stages, because there were not many participating users and there were many projects with higher returns, if ordinary retail investors took the full airdrop, the income would be above $1,000 after deducting costs. However, as the number of users continues to increase and the threshold becomes higher and higher, its monthly income has dropped from thousands of US dollars to around 600 US dollars. In mid-May, the airdrop income of a certain project was as low as 25 US dollars, 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 ecology. On the one hand, Alpha's huge traffic has brought "spillover effects" 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 of 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 strategy, 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 has further pushed up the points threshold 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 the returns continue to decline, ordinary users may choose to exit. Robots and arbitrageurs squeeze 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 a negative factor. The supply of high-quality Alpha projects may be exhausted. In the long run, it will be difficult for the platform to maintain high-frequency, high-value airdrop activities.