unmodified binutils fails on alpha

[coypu%sdf.org@localhost]

hi folks,

while trying to build GCC trunk on 8.0, I had some binutils related bug.
Trying to update binutils to the latest is failing for a variety of
reasons.

The release of 2.31.1 at least fails in a way that can be inspected for
more info: the binary crashes.

this is a build of int main() { return 0; }.

http://coypu.sdf.org/crash-alpha # with unmodified binutils 2.31.1
http://coypu.sdf.org/ok-alpha # with binutils from 8.0, works fine

It will segfault right away:

$ gdb ./crash -q -ex r -ex bt
Reading symbols from ./crash...(no debugging symbols found)...done.
Starting program: /home/maya/crash

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x0000000000000000 in ?? ()
#0  0x0000000000000000 in ?? ()
#1  0x00000001200009d8 in ___start ()
#2  0x000000012000087c in _start ()
Backtrace stopped: frame did not save the PC

Any idea what is wrong with the binary made by binutils 2.31.1?