KANPUR (CoinChapter.com)
— Alpaca Finance’s native token, ALPACA, delivered one of the most unexpected breakouts of April 2025, soaring over 1,100% in under three weeks. From a low of $0.029 on April 24, the token spiked 3,658% to a peak of $1.09 by April 30, before retreating slightly to $1.03. The explosive rally unfolded amid a 24-hour volume surge exceeding 268 million ALPACA tokens, reflecting intensified speculative interest.
The broader crypto market, by contrast, remains in a holding pattern. Bitcoin traded around $94,827 on April 30 while Ethereum slipped 0.82% to trade around $1,804. Both assets continue to consolidate after rallying earlier this month.
Altcoins showed mixed results, with some mid-cap tokens retracing recent gains. Exchange activity, especially among small-cap assets, has picked up, driven by automated trading and short-term speculation.
Against this backdrop, ALPACA’s rally looks like an anomaly — one fueled less by fundamentals and more by timing, leverage, and engineered market moves.
The parabolic surge comes just days before Binance is scheduled to delist the token from its platform, flipping conventional expectations on their heads. But behind the explosive price action lies a far more calculated play—one that may leave late entrants wrecked.
Whales Engineered the Rally — Retail Could Pay the Price
The ALPACA rally wasn’t a comeback. It was a calculated ambush. Whales exploited the market’s reflexive reaction to negative headlines — in this case, Binance’s April 24 announcement to delist ALPACA. Instead of collapsing, the token surged, trapping retail shorts in a highly coordinated liquidation scheme.
On-chain data suggests large holders started buying ALPACA around April 19, well before the public delisting news. Once the announcement hit, expectations of a crash took over. Retail traders opened short positions, which gave whales the setup they needed.
The whales opened long positions in perpetual futures and aggressively bought up the spot market. The shorts started liquidating as ALPACA jumped past resistance near $0.16 and $0.24. Each forced exit pushed prices higher, feeding the move.
What followed was a textbook short squeeze. Funding rates flipped deeply negative, and short sellers had to pay longs, increasing the pressure. The more the price climbed, the worse it got for late entrants betting against the rally. Analysts on X pointed out how the timing aligned with Binance’s futures auto-closure, allowing whales to exit cleanly once the squeeze exhausted itself.
Fundamentals told a different story. Between April 20 and 25, Alpaca Finance’s TVL dropped from $50 million to $30 million. That’s a 40% collapse in protocol trust. Meanwhile, Binance volumes for ALPACA jumped 350%. None of it was organic. It was speculative overflow.
Retail traders rushing in now are chasing a mirage. The price move wasn’t driven by value or innovation. Leverage, timing, and exit mechanics fueled the rally. And when whales dump, retail will be the one caught with their pants down.
ALPACA Price Rally Likely A Bull Trap
ALPACA’s daily chart looks absurd. The token exploded from under $0.18 to over $1.2 in a few hours, printing a vertical green candle that added more than 475% in a single day. This isn’t price discovery. This is engineered madness. Although, what Bitcoin and Ethereum bulls would not give for a day like this!
The Fibonacci retracement shows immediate resistance near $1.07. Flipping the immediate resistance would target the resistance near $1.22. Another key resistance sits near $1.55. But these levels are irrelevant once the game ends. When whales exit, they leave a vacuum. No support or resistance survives a rug.
Support rests near $0.76, and the next key level is near $0.47. These zones may offer temporary relief, but they’re unreliable. Retail liquidity can’t sustain tokens once the inflow dries up. The RSI sits at 87.26, deep into overbought territory, confirming that momentum is maxed out. When price accelerates vertically like this, it never ends well for late entrants.
The EMAs (20/50/100/200) cluster far below the current price, highlighting how disconnected the rally is from any sustainable trend. The token hasn’t just broken out — it has left the atmosphere. That’s not bullish. That’s unsustainable.
The crash will be brutal once the whales finish harvesting shorts and unwinding. Support zones will break. RSI will dive. And retail traders will learn the hard way that short squeezes don’t create long-term value. They only redistribute pain. Anyone chasing ALPACA at these levels isn’t trading — they’re volunteering as exit liquidity.