The weekend brought a stark downturn for RaveDAO after crypto sleuth ZachXBT urged exchanges to scrutinize trading activities linked to its token, prompting investor panic and an abrupt loss in billions of dollars.
Since the request on Saturday by one of blockchain’s most notable investigators, RAVER’s market cap plummeted over $6.6 billion as Binance, Bitget, and Gate were called upon to probe potential price manipulation. Currently valued at around $150 million according to CoinGecko, the token has seen nearly a 98% drop from its peak shortly after ZachXBT raised his concerns in an X post. Previously, RAVE had skyrocketed within weeks to become one of the crypto market’s top-valued tokens.
RAVE enables holders to establish local chapters under the RaveDAO brand, purchase event tickets, and engage in NFT releases. The token’s white paper highlights its design for fostering an economy driven by genuine activity rather than short-term speculation.
Following the token’s decline on Saturday, RaveDAO denied any involvement or responsibility for recent price fluctuations. ZachXBT cited suspicious activities linked to addresses associated with RaveDAO’s team on Bitget this month as a cause for concern.
The token’s steep fall coincided with $52 million in liquidated positions within 24 hours, leading ZachXBT to describe its prior valuation as manipulated and unsustainable, urging quicker intervention from exchanges. Tracy Chen of Bitget, Richard Teng of Binance, and Kevin Lee of Gate have all indicated ongoing investigations into the matter, though no findings were reported by Monday.
Blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence revealed that RaveDAO-linked wallets transferred RAVE tokens valued at $24 million to Bitget on Sunday. The token’s price dropped from a peak of $27.33 on Saturday to about $0.56 on Monday.
Decrypthas sought comments from RaveDAO, Bitget, Binance, and Gate.
Launched in December, the token operates on Ethereum, Binance’s BNB Chain, and Base, an Ethereum layer-2 network by Coinbase. ZachXBT pointed out that 95% of the supply was controlled through tokens linked to its initial distribution.
In September, RaveDAO announced a collaboration with World Liberty Financial, backed by U.S. President Donald Trump and his sons. The partnership aimed to use World Liberty’s USD1 stablecoin for transactions in South Korea. Despite official promotions of events in Lisbon and Hong Kong on its Instagram account, discussions among members in the official Discord channel primarily revolved around their purchase prices during RAVE’s surge.