On Sunday, blockchain sleuth ZachXBT alleged that RaveDAO’s team is aware of those who manipulated its token’s price, which experienced an unprecedented surge of 11,000% before plummeting almost immediately. ‘I discovered suspicious activity on centralized crypto exchanges (CEX) connected to the RaveDAO addresses on April 26, which potentially conflicts with their recent statements,’ ZachXBT noted.
In a separate post, he highlighted a transaction from a RAVE address involved in RaveDAO’s initial distribution, where approximately $23 million worth of tokens were moved to two Bitget deposit addresses, causing the price to fall by 40% from $1 to $0.6. Despite these claims, RaveDAO issued a six-part X thread on Saturday (previously reported by CoinDesk), asserting, ‘We are aware of rumors and accusations about $RAVE and the RaveDAO team. We want to clarify: The RaveDAO team is not involved in or responsible for recent price movements.’
However, ZachXBT countered, ‘Given the concentration of supply, the team at least knows who caused this price action.’ In another post on X, he questioned, ‘How can we expect the community to believe $RAVE organically grew from a $60M market cap to $6B in nine days with minimal utility? With your team managing the initial distribution and maintaining a low float, it’s unlikely you’re unaware of who orchestrated this.’
The RaveDAO token’s price soared nearly 11,000% over nine days, from about $0.25 to $27.33, before crashing by more than 90%, wiping off roughly $5.7 billion in market capitalization within 48 hours. It currently stands at approximately $0.67. ZachXBT also mentioned that RAVE’s manipulation is not unique among tokens on major centralized exchanges but is the most overt example. He added it was improbable for these CEXs to miss such substantial price fluctuations.