Polyhedra’s Phoenix Revival: Stakers Rewarded After ZKJ Liquidity Crash – What’s Next?

ZKJ token holders watched $500 million evaporate in minutes during a coordinated liquidity attack on June 15, but Polyhedra has just launched its Phoenix Revival Program to reward the survivors.

The program targets stakeholders who held through the 90% crash, offering early access to ecosystem airdrops and zero-knowledge infrastructure rewards.

Community backlash erupted immediately, with investors calling the initiative a betrayal after the leadership abandoned promised buybacks for vague future perks instead of addressing the financial carnage.

According to an X post from Polyhedra, the Phoenix Revival Program targets users who had staked ZKJ tokens on-chain via Ethereum or Binance Smart Chain as of 13:00 UTC on June 15.

https://t.co/Iinuw5BaTT

Eligibility and reward allocation will be based on each user’s staking power at that exact moment. This approach, according to Polyhedra, recognizes loyalty and long-term participation rather than short-term speculation.

Through the program, eligible users will also gain access to incentives tied to future Polyhedra products and whitelist placement for upcoming ecosystem airdrops.

While the platform did not provide an exact timeline for rewards, it confirmed that these benefits would be integrated into multiple ongoing and future product rollouts, such as ZKML—a zero-knowledge and AI hybrid verification tool, a zkSNARK-based privacy stablecoin, the zero-knowledge decentralized exchange “Dark Pool,” and EXPchain, a zk-native Layer-1 blockchain with live testnet and forthcoming cross-chain functionality.

However, the community’s reaction to Polyhedra’s Phoenix Revival Program was negative because the plan omitted any reference to a buyback commitment previously promised by the project’s leadership.

We will buyback more. Now we need to figure out current situation and we need to prevent future financial attack. https://t.co/AuYMA65aj6

Many viewed it as a betrayal of trust and an indication that the team was retreating from financial responsibility.

Instead of directly addressing the damage caused by the crash, which had wiped out over 90% of ZKJ’s market value and left many investors deep in the red, the team focused its recovery plan on future access to new product features and airdrops.

When’s the buyback happening? You promised.

This forward-looking approach failed to satisfy many stakeholders who were still grappling with immediate losses.

A sense of abandonment pervaded community discussions, with users expressing frustration that Polyhedra appeared more concerned with salvaging its roadmap and image than compensating those who had lost substantial funds.

Adding to the frustration, community members noted that the planned staking incentives and ecosystem benefits were only useful if the project and its token regained value, something many now doubted.

@Tiancheng_Xie and @PolyhedraZK is so despicable that he blames project $KOGE or damages project ZKJ, but look at this chart, it says it all, #KOGE is silent but they have taken action and #zkj is essentially a scammer who has scammed the community. pic.twitter.com/r0ue6XDEoc

As of press time, the token was trading at $0.1962, down 6.25% on the day and 82.65% over the past year. Since its peak at $4.01 in March 2024, ZKJ has lost more than 94% of its value.

On June 15, the ZKJ token from Polyhedra experienced a severe collapse, plunging from $2 to below $0.35 in under two hours.

ZKJ crashed 90% in one hour. Was it a rug pull or just chaos? We break down what happened and why Polyhedra is under fire.#Polyhedra #scamhttps://t.co/LApE7trcfQ

The collapse began with a $4.3 million liquidity withdrawal from PancakeSwap by a single wallet, followed by the rapid sale of 1.5 million ZKJ tokens.

Around the same time, a Wintermute-linked wallet deposited additional ZKJ into exchanges, sparking further sell-offs. Bybit recorded over $97 million in long position liquidations within two hours.

In response, Polyhedra injected $30 million worth of stablecoins into its DEX pools and announced a temporary buyback.

Dear Polyhedra community — we want to emphasize that the fundamentals of Polyhedra remain strong, both in our technology and in the incredible support from our community. We’re continuing to build and push forward as planned.
Today’s price drop was caused by a series of abnormal…

However, this failed to stabilize the market, and skepticism quickly mounted when on-chain researchers discovered that wallets linked to the team may have been involved in draining the KOGE/USDT liquidity pool, used prominently in Binance’s Alpha Points program.

These wallets later swapped KOGE for ZKJ and dumped large amounts into the open market, raising concerns of a coordinated exit.

Although Polyhedra denied any direct involvement, the community remained unconvinced.

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