Blockchain sleuth accuses RaveDAO of knowing who manipulated the price of its token

Blockchain sleuth ZachXBT wrote on Sunday that the team behind RaveDAO is at least aware of who manipulated the price of its token, which saw an impossible 11,000% surge in price followed by a near immediate collapse.

“I found suspicious CEX (centralized crypto exchanges) activity on April 26 tied to RaveDAO team addresses onchain, which potentially contradicts their recent statements,” the blockchain investigator said.

In a separate post, ZachXBT flagged a transfer from a $RAVE address used for “initial distribution” by RaveDAO from which roughly $23 million worth of tokens were transferred to two Bitget deposit addresses causing the price to drop 40% from $1 to $0.6.

RaveDAO posted a six-part X thread on Saturday, previously reported by CoinDesk, stating “we are aware of the rumors and accusations circulating regarding $RAVE and the RaveDAO team. We want to be clear: RaveDAO team is not engaged in, nor responsible for, recent price action.”

However, ZachXBT said, “given the supply concentration, the team at minimum knows who is responsible for this price action.”

In a separate X post, the investigator said, “you expect the community to believe $RAVE went $60M -> $6B mkt cap organically in nine days with little to no utility? Considering your team handled the initial distribution with a low float it’s unlikely you do not know the party responsible for it.”

The RaveDAO token, which increased by nearly 11,000% in nine days from about $0.25 to $27.33, then plunged by over 90%, losing roughly $5.7 billion in market capitalization in just 48 hours. Its price currently hovers around $0.67.

The sleuth also said $RAVE is not the only token with manipulation “we have seen on major centralized exchanges. It's just the most blatant.” He also said it was highly unlikely the CEXs did not spot the massive $RAVE token price movements.