Following allegations of a coordinated price manipulation, major cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Bitget have initiated investigations into the trading activities surrounding the RAVE token, which is part of the RaveDAO project. The token experienced a rapid 4,500% surge, resulting in over $44 million in liquidations. The investigation was sparked by on-chain analyst ZachXBT, who claimed that insiders orchestrated a short squeeze. ZachXBT has offered a $10,000 bounty for information about those involved.
Nearly 90% of RAVE's token supply was held in just three wallets, and millions of tokens were transferred to exchanges before the price surge. RaveDAO, which describes itself as a Web3 project focused on electronic music events, has stated that it is not responsible for the recent price action and plans to explore incentive models that tie team rewards to ecosystem growth.