Three wallets, one denial, and $5.7 billion in market cap gone in 48 hours.
RaveDAO’s RAVE crashed by 90% over 24 hours after crypto exchanges Binance and Bitget opened investigations into buying and selling exercise that catapulted the token to a $6 billion market cap final week.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen confirmed the probe on X, and Binance co-CEO Richard Teng subsequently stated the change was reviewing the matter and would “all the time” do its half to look at indicators of market misconduct. Gate.io was additionally named within the unique allegations from onchain investigator ZachXBT, who has supplied a $25,000 bounty for whistleblowers with proof of the events concerned.
The collapse accelerated after the mission’s Saturday denial quite than stabilizing on it.
RaveDAO posted a six-part X thread stating the workforce “isn’t engaged in, nor liable for, latest value motion.”
The thread didn’t tackle any of the particular onchain allegations that prompted the scrutiny, together with the focus of roughly 90% of the 1 billion RAVE provide throughout three Gnosis Secure multi-signature wallets attributed to the workforce, or the hundreds of thousands of tokens transferred to exchanges shortly earlier than the rally started.
The unique rally took RAVE from about $0.25 to $27.33 in 9 days, a ten,800% transfer that triggered $44 million in liquidations on Friday, simply behind bitcoin and ether, with the majority of them from quick sellers positioned towards the token.
Investigators flagged a “bait and liquidate” sample during which seen token transfers to exchanges advised incoming promote stress, drawing merchants into quick positions earlier than these tokens have been withdrawn and costs ripped larger, forcing shorts to cowl at progressively worse ranges.
RaveDAO presents itself as a Web3 leisure platform providing onchain ticketing for digital music occasions, tracing its origins to a 2023 Istanbul afterparty. The mission reported about $3 million in 2025 income and lists partnerships with Binance, OKX, Bitget, and Polygon.
RaveDAO’s thread did verify the workforce plans to “liquidate parts of unlocked tokens” when applicable to fund operations and advertising, and stated it was “exploring applicable fashions, together with price-triggered or performance-triggered locks, that tie workforce incentives to ecosystem progress.”
It didn’t decide to any particular lockup mechanism or timeline, nevertheless.