Under the brutal harvesting, who is looking forward to the next COAI? - ChainCatcher

Author: zhou, ChainCatcher

Since September, the cryptocurrency market has witnessed a series of brutal harvests, from MYX, AIA to COAI. The market makers and project parties have teamed up to use high control and manipulation tactics to sweep away retail investors' funds. Despite the obvious signs of harvesting, a large number of users in the market are still hoping for the next “hundred-fold coin”, fearing they might miss the opportunity to get rich.

Evolution of the “Harvest Template” from MYX to COAI

The beginning of this scene started with MYX.Finance, a decentralized derivatives exchange based on the Arbitrum chain. Its token MYX was launched on Binance Alpha in early September with an initial market value of about 100 million USD and relatively low trading volume. In early September, MYX suddenly ignited and surged, with its market value quickly climbing to over 3 billion USD, followed by a high-level consolidation phase, accompanied by intraday “needle-like lifts” and pullbacks, and the funding rate turning negative, with the top ten addresses holding over 95% of the positions. According to coinglass data, on September 18, MYX rose 298.18% in a single day, with an intraday volatility of up to 317.11%, during which short positions faced liquidations of 52.0863 million USD and long positions 10.5109 million USD. In early October, the price entered a waterfall-like decline, and although there were brief rebounds, it quickly continued to drop further. After that, MYX has been on a continuous downtrend, and its market value has fallen back and stabilized at around 500 million USD.

Following closely, the first wave of trend-following projects, DeAgentAI (AIA), quickly made its debut, attracting market attention with AI agent narratives. At the beginning of October, its price surged more than ten times, and then it replicated the MYX strategy, harvesting retail investors through multiple spikes and drops, with a concentration of holdings reaching 97%. If AIA is a lightweight copy of the MYX template, then ChainOpera (COAI) takes this model to the extreme.

On September 25th, COAI was listed on Binance's Alpha and Futures platforms, with an initial market value of only $15 million. Within a few weeks, its price surged hundreds of times, with the market cap soaring to over $8 billion at its peak. Subsequently, the price fluctuated violently between $5 and $25. Such dramatic ups and downs, akin to a halving-style washout, make it one of the most eye-catching “meme coins” of the year. Several traders have analyzed that the top ten holders of COAI control 96.5%-97% of the circulating supply. The market makers induce retail investors to follow suit by pumping the price (like the 81% surge on October 15th) and then dump it (like the 58% crash on October 25th), leaving retail investors almost powerless to respond.

It is important to note that newly launched tokens are often dominated by project parties, institutional investors, or market makers (MM) in their initial issuance, resulting in a high concentration of holdings (it is common for the top 10 addresses to account for 30%-60% of the holdings). In the case of Alpha new tokens, the top 10 addresses usually account for between 50%-80% of the holdings, with 95% representing an extremely concentrated state.

From MYX to COAI, the strategies of the market makers have become increasingly sophisticated: First, they create hype around hot topics, using the advantages of high concentration of chips and control to easily manipulate the coin price, and then amplify the capital effect through contracts to achieve high-level exits. If retail investors concentrate on shorting, the market makers can not only profit from the funding rates but also use the liquidation funds to pump the price further, solidifying their control.

FOMO Driven 'Control is Justice'

Recently, many users on X have been posting images to show off their short-term trading results, and survivor bias has obscured a significant amount of liquidation losses, creating an illusion of low expectations and high returns.

The community's attitude has also changed: from initially harshly criticizing MYX as a “three-no project” (no code maintenance, no buyback commitment, no community foundation), questioning the rationality of its surge to a market value of tens of billions; to now, some investors caught up in FOMO emotions gradually accepting the idea that “controlling the market is justice”, dreaming that the story of getting rich overnight might just happen to them.

Crypto investor @huahuayjy stated that the emergence of MYX has epoch-making significance for the crypto space, as it strongly breaks the ceiling for altcoins, making market makers and project teams aware of the potential for huge profits from price manipulation. Subsequent imitators may drive a small bull market for altcoins. However, opposing views point out that a true altcoin season relies on overall liquidity easing and new capital inflow, rather than a few projects playing hot potato; furthermore, some believe that the MYX model may signal the end of the bull market, making it more difficult for small projects to break out.

In addition, KOL sanyi.eth reflects that after shorting MYX and incurring losses, he has actively avoided meme coins. COAI rose from $0.3 to $61 and then retraced to $18. Although the project previously secured about $17 million in funding and received support from Binance Labs, positioning itself in the AI track, its project foundation is not weak. However, compared to the coin price and valuation, market sentiment is clearly overheated. Retail investors participating in such highly volatile coins often end up with liquidation or paying high fees.

When a large number of retail investors are still flocking to MYX and COAI, it shows that the market's pursuit of fairness has gradually given way to the chase for speculative profits. In other words, as long as one can still gamble on contracts, many people do not care whether the project team or market makers are behind the scenes.

It is worth mentioning that, according to X user @hellosuoha, at the KBW 2025 conference held last month in Seoul, South Korea, the transaction depth of projects like MYX, AVNT, and IP attracted attention, and the market makers behind them have become key contacts for potential token issuers.

Similar patterns are being wildly copied, and in the future, more MYX-style projects may emerge. In this ecosystem, retail investors who are addicted to FOMO will only face more intense liquidation lines.

Alpha Narrative Amplification Harvesting Effect?

Essentially, the significant fluctuations in these cryptocurrencies after their launch are partly due to direct manipulation by market makers and project teams; on the other hand, the Alpha platform narrative accelerates retail entry, providing market makers with a broader “hunting ground” and evolving into a standardized script that replicates faster and exits more ruthlessly.

This may also reveal one of the design intentions of Binance Alpha: to attract speculators with its low circulation and high volatility characteristics. After all, there are always those willing to pay for volatility—some come for the rewards, some stay for short-term profits, and ultimately, some pay the price in the midst of volatility.

In addition to high-control coins like MYX, AIA, and COAI, the Alpha platform has also seen various chaos: some projects have gone to zero or crashed immediately upon launch, while others are involved in false narratives or code plagiarism. Overall, the platform's motivation to attract speculative funds far outweighs its intention to incubate projects.

From another perspective, the emergence of Alpha is not inherently sinful; it is merely a high-volatility experimental arena focused on early new products. However, when narratives, structures, and human nature converge, volatility becomes a harvesting machine. According to data from CoinMarketCap, Binance Alpha's 24-hour trading volume exceeds $8 billion, far surpassing many small and medium-sized cryptocurrency exchanges, which also indicates that this kind of “wild growth” is not accidental, but rather a product of the interplay between capital and traffic.

Conclusion

On one side, the market makers and project parties use the high volatility of the Alpha platform to create a green exit channel, while on the other side, retail investors are still obsessed with the fantasy of the next “hundredfold coin.” Greed and fear intertwine; human nature has always been like this. Instead of blindly chasing the next COAI, it is better to think about what position you hold in this game.

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