Alpaca price jumps 1000% amid delisting in suspected manipulation

Alpaca Finance (CRYPTO:ALPACA) experienced an extraordinary price surge of over 1,000% following Binance’s announcement that it would delist the token on May 2, 2025.

This sharp increase defied typical market behavior, as tokens usually decline in value after delisting news.

Experts and analysts have raised concerns that the price rally was driven by market manipulation rather than genuine accumulation.

Analyst Budhil Vyas described the event as “textbook liquidity hunting,” explaining that large traders or whales first pushed the price down by 80%, triggering panic selling and liquidations.

Then, just before the delisting deadline, these players rapidly pumped the price by 15 times to extract liquidity from the market.

Vyas emphasised that the surge was a tactical move to drain remaining liquidity rather than a sign of real buying interest.

Another analyst, Johannes, detailed how manipulators exploit low liquidity post-delisting announcements by controlling a large portion of the token supply and using perpetual futures contracts.

They buy on the spot market to drive prices up while limiting selling pressure, enabling them to close futures positions profitably with minimal slippage.

DeFi analyst Ignas noted that similar patterns have been observed before, especially during delisting events on South Korean exchanges like Upbit.

He referenced Bitcoin Gold (CRYPTO:BTG), which saw a 112% price increase after its delisting announcement, illustrating that such manipulative “pump and dump” tactics remain common.

The ALPACA price peaked at around $1.47 before falling back to approximately $0.55, down 34.5% in 24 hours but still up significantly over the week.

At the time of writing, the Alpaca Finance (ALPACA) price was $0.2481.