RAVE Token Plunges 90% Amid Exchange Investigations

A staggering $5.7 billion in market capitalization vanished within 48 hours, triggered by a 90% collapse of the RAVE token over 24 hours, following probes by Binance and Bitget into suspicious trading activity that had driven the token's market cap to $6 billion the previous week. Bitget's CEO, Gracy Chen, confirmed the investigation on X, while Binance co-CEO Richard Teng stated that the exchange would review the matter and take necessary actions to address potential market misconduct. Gate.io was also implicated in the allegations made by onchain investigator ZachXBT, who offered a $25,000 bounty for whistleblowers with evidence. Despite RaveDAO's denial on Saturday, the token's collapse accelerated, with the project posting a six-part thread on X stating that the team was not responsible for the recent price action. However, the thread failed to address specific onchain allegations, including the concentration of 90% of the 1 billion RAVE supply across three Gnosis Safe multi-signature wallets attributed to the team, and the transfer of millions of tokens to exchanges before the rally began. The initial rally saw RAVE surge from $0.25 to $27.33 in nine days, a 10,800% increase that led to $44 million in liquidations on Friday, primarily from short sellers. Investigators identified a 'bait and liquidate' pattern, where token transfers to exchanges suggested sell pressure, drawing traders into short positions before the tokens were withdrawn, and prices rose, forcing shorts to cover at progressively worse levels. RaveDAO, a Web3 entertainment platform offering onchain ticketing for electronic music events, reported $3 million in revenue in 2025 and has partnerships with Binance, OKX, Bitget, and Polygon. The project's thread confirmed plans to liquidate portions of unlocked tokens to fund operations and marketing, and explore lockup mechanisms that tie team incentives to ecosystem growth, but did not commit to a specific timeline or mechanism.