Author: Nan Zhi, Odaily Planet Daily

Since its launch of Binance Alpha on December 18, Binance has listed a total of 38 tokens. In the first phase, most tokens were of very high market capitalization, leading to less significant price increases; however, the fifth phase's WHALES token saw a large increase due to its very small market cap. So how should one invest?

In this article, we will answer several questions with detailed data:

  • How is the short-term listing effect?

  • How is the mid-to-long term listing effect?

  • Do different chains exhibit different price fluctuation patterns?

  • Is there a relationship between the listing effect and market capitalization?

Data Overview

The 5-minute price changes, 1-hour price changes, and cumulative price changes since the launch of 38 tokens in the six phases of Binance Alpha are shown in the table below. All price data comes from TradingView's 5-minute K-line chart; market capitalization is based on circulating market cap from CoinGecko.

To objectively compare whether the cumulative price changes outperform the entire market, this article selects three tokens as reference objects: arc on Solana, VIRTUAL on Base, and BTC. (Note: PSTAKE could not find sufficient liquidity trading pairs, and its price fluctuation is very high, so it is omitted here.)

How is the short-term listing effect?

From the table above, we can see that the 5-minute average price changes from the first to the sixth period are all positive, at 14%, 23%, 18%, 5%, 22%, and 0% respectively. It is evident that Binance Alpha also has a short-term listing effect, but it definitely falls short compared to Binance's own platform. For reference, the average 5-minute listing effect of Moonshot is about 30%, which is relatively close.

However, further analysis shows that the short-term price increases are mainly contributed by a few standout tokens, while most tokens have negligible increases.

The chart below shows the price change bar graphs for three different periods, clearly indicating that the red portion (5-minute price increase) has a few outstanding bars, but most price increases are very small.

How is the mid-to-long term listing effect?

Using the 1-hour closing price as a reference, it can be seen from the table that most tokens maintain positive price increases (green bars above the 0 axis) after 1 hour of being listed.

Considering users who are not fast enough to buy, comparing the 1-hour closing price to the 5-minute closing price (a green bar below a red bar indicates relative decline), the relative price changes over six periods are -10%, -7%, 3%, -3%, 4%, and 4%. This indicates that if you buy too slowly, you will be stuck in the mid-term.

How is the long-term performance? From the blue bars in the chart, it is evident that after going live on Binance Alpha, these tokens' long-term increases are significantly better than their short-term increases. For most users, it is more suitable to research which projects are of high quality after going live, and then buy the dip and wait for long-term gains.

Is the long-term price increase driven by the overall upward trend of the crypto market, or is there indeed an influence from the platform? Through the three control groups of arc, VIRTUAL, and BTC, we can see that the market was in a downward trend during the listing of the first three batches, yet the listed tokens still had positive price increases. Therefore, overall, launching on Binance Alpha is indeed a long-term benefit for tokens.

Do different chains exhibit different price fluctuation patterns?

Organized by chain, the data forms and bar charts are shown below. The differences between chains are very obvious; Ethereum clearly leads in 5-minute price changes, while Base is the weakest; Solana far surpasses in long-term increases, with the other three chains showing little difference.

The data for tokens on the Solana chain is shown below; overall, the differences in 5-minute and 1-hour price changes are not significant, while the long-term increases are far ahead, making it possibly the most suitable chain to participate in Binance Alpha.

Ethereum data is shown below, with the differences between the 5-minute and 1-hour periods significantly larger compared to Solana. The table shows an average 5-minute price increase of 24%, an average 1-hour increase of 17%, but a cumulative increase since launch of only 24%. Ethereum requires extremely high gas costs to seize advantageous positions in the short term, yet the overall price increase is not significant, making participation value minimal at present.

BNB Chain data is shown in the diagram below, with the 5-minute and 1-hour price changes further diverging, yet the tokens with the best long-term increases (purple bars) are all those with relatively small 1-hour increases.

Base data is shown below, with the main contributors to price increases being LUNA and ODOS, but the sample size is small, making it difficult to identify underlying patterns.

Is there a relationship between the listing effect and market capitalization?

Sorted by market capitalization in ascending order, the data for each period is shown in the diagram below. It is clear that the tokens with the most significant short-term increases are all small-cap tokens, but they also experience the most significant declines after 1 hour. There is no obvious correlation between long-term increases and market capitalization.