Immutable (IMX) Up By 23% In A Single Day, Analyst Suspects Market Manipulation

$IMX, native token of Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Immutable X, recorded massive gains on Thursday, soaring by over 23% within the last 24 hours. Before this price gain, $IMX had been relatively stable all week, hovering around the $0.52 price zone, according to data from Coingecko.

Behind $IMX’s Rise, Analysts Points To Price Manipulation

Although there may be no clear reasons for the token’s positive price movement, Chinese reporter Colin Wu speculated about potential price speculation.

According to a post on X by Wu, 10.95 million of the token, valued at $8.1 million, were transferred to the Upbit exchange from several other crypto exchanges, including Binance, OKX, Bybit, Crypto.com, Gate, etc.

Korean traders are manipulating the price of $IMX and driving a surge. Today, 10.95 million $IMX ($8.1 million) flowed into Upbit from multiple CEXs such as Binance, OKX, Bybit, Cryptocom, Gate, etc. The price quickly rose from US$0.56 to US$1. https://t.co/JjUcqi7CKS

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) September 21, 2023

Following these transactions, the token surged from $0.56 to $0.74, representing a 34.5% price gain. Wu has stated that Korean traders are “behind this move.” The Upbit exchange is mainly popular in South Korea, dominating over 83% of the nation’s crypto market.

Providing more insight into these transactions, on-chain analytics firm Lookonchain reports that these transfers to Upbit were sent to the same wallet with the address “0x2F77.” This indicates a single crypto whale was likely behind this price surge.

Within three hours on Thursday, 12.54 million of the token, valued at $9.45 million, was transferred to “0x2F77,” allowing this address to become the 9th largest holder of the token, owning 20.4 million worth $15 million.

Furthermore, Lookonchain also revealed that several $IMX investors opted to take profit following the token’s price gain. These investors include GSR Markets, a crypto investment firm that moved 2 million $IMX, worth $1.52 million, to Binance right after $IMX rose.

In addition, three investors withdrew 3.5 million $IMX, valued at $2.3 million, from the Foundation Treasury Locked wallet and may be planning a market dump. Following such transactions, it is no surprise that $IMX soon experienced a price decline of about 13.33% a few hours after its boost.

$IMX Gets Listed On Japanese Exchange

In other news, $IMX has also been listed on the Japanese exchange Coincheck. According to a blog post by the crypto exchange on Thursday, $IMX will now be eligible for its various services, including Coincheck NFT and Coincheck crypto lending service.

In addition to $IMX, Coincheck also announced listing other cryptocurrencies, namely Apecoin (APE) and AXS, the governance token of the Axie Infinity gaming metaverse.

At the time of writing, the $IMX trades at around $0.64, with a price loss of 1.8% in the last hour. Based on more data from Coingecko, the token’s daily trading volume rose by 238.20%, valued at $808.50 million.