RaveDAO crashes 54% – Why ZachXBT flags ‘blatant’ price manipulation

RaveDAO [RAVE] experienced a sharp sell-off in the past week. At the time of writing, the token was trading at $0.5978 after a drop of 54% in the past 24 hours.

The drop followed comments from ZachXBT, a pseudonymous blockchain fraud investigator, who flagged RAVE’s extreme price volatility. Notably, the token was priced at $0.32 on the 9th of April, surged to $22.08 by the 18th of April, and has since fallen back below $1.

ZachXBT decodes RaveDAO’s losses 

ZachXBT used his post to provide perspective on RAVE’s massive price swing. 

By the 18th of April, the investigator urged Binance, Bitget, and Gate.io to examine possible market manipulation. He initially offered a $10K bounty, but only after raising it to $25K did all three platforms publicly respond. 

However, RaveDAO denied any involvement in the price fluctuations and noted, 

Yet, ZachXBT still believes otherwise, as he noted, 

Given the supply concentration, the team at minimum knows who is responsible for this price action.

He further added, 

I find it unlikely this activity wasn’t spotted internally before I raised it publicly.

Analyzing losses incurred

The investigator further stressed that about $6 billion in market cap was wiped out thanks to $52 million of forced selling. 

Adding to the same, Arkham data also highlighted RaveDAO-linked addresses sold about $23 million in RAVE, which in turn resulted in a 35% price drop in the short term.

 Seeing such a massive impact, ZachXBT put it best when he said, 

RAVE is not the only token with manipulation we have seen on major centralized exchanges. It’s just the most blatant, reaching a top 15 market cap within 10 days before dropping 95% in hours.

Final Summary

• Within just a couple of days, RAVE surged from $0.32 to $22.08, but by press time had fallen back below $1.
• $6 billion in market cap was wiped out, which happened due to $52 million in liquidations.