Blockchain investigator ZachXBT said on Sunday that the team behind RaveDAO may already know who was responsible for manipulating the price of its RAVE token.
The announcement, made via a X post, comes as the token saw an extraordinary 11,000 percent spike in value before crashing sharply soon after, which raised red flags across the crypto community.
ZachXBT added that he spotted unusual trading activity on centralized exchanges on April 26 that appeared to be linked to wallet addresses associated with the RaveDAO team.
According to him, these on-chain findings could contradict the team’s recent statements about being unaware of the source of the discrepancies and suggest they might have more insight into what happened than they have publicly shared.
RAVE price swings showed concerning movements
The blockchain sleuth raised additional red flags as well about the dramatic price swings in the RAVE token after tracking a major transfer tied to the project’s early token distribution.
His latest findings focused on how large movements of funds may have played a role in the sudden drop in the token’s value.
According to him, a wallet address linked to RaveDAO, one that had been used during the token’s initial distribution phase, moved roughly $23 million worth of RAVE tokens to two deposit addresses on the crypto exchange Bitget.
However, the RaveDAO team made a public response to the problem by posting an update on the X platform. In their message, they indicated that there have been speculations about the price manipulation of the token; however, their team denied all those accusations.
The market reacted quickly after the transfer, and the price of the token dropped by about 40 percent, from around $1 to $0.60 in a short amount of time.
When it comes to the crypto ecosystem, big moves to exchange wallets can be seen as a sign that tokens might be sold. Even the thought of it can cause panic or selling pressure.
The company emphasized that the team did not trigger the latest market events and had nothing to do with the sudden increase followed by the decrease in price.
However, despite the denial, ZachXBT pointed out that because of how the token distribution was set up, it was difficult to accept that the team had no idea of what was going on.
Additionally, he pointed out that when a large share of tokens is held by a limited number of wallets, particularly those connected to the early distribution, project insiders usually have visibility into significant transactions.
In his view, the issue is less about direct blame and more about accountability and transparency. He suggested that, at the very least, the team would likely know who controlled the wallets involved in the price movement.
ZachXBT casts doubt timing of RAVE token value surged
In yet another blog post, ZachXBT asked whether it was possible for a market to handle this kind of fast growth when one looked at the numbers. The market valuation of the project, according to rumors, had risen from a little over $60 million to $6 billion within nine days despite its limited practical use.
According to him, there were hardly any instances where such a steep rise occurred without any form of manipulation when it came to a project whose token circulation in the market was less than five percent.
The RAVE witnessed some massive swings in just nine days, making a lot of waves in the world of cryptos. From an approximate value of $0.25, the coin’s price skyrocketed to $27.33 in nine days, registering a massive gain of more than 11,000 percent.
But the momentum didn’t last. Within only 48 hours, the price collapsed by more than 90 percent, erasing roughly $5.7 billion in market value. Since then, the token has settled much lower, currently trading at about $0.67.
The blockchain investigator also noted that RAVE is probably not the only token to experience suspicious price movements on major centralized exchanges, but described this case as one of the clearest examples.
He also added that it would be hard for large exchanges to overlook such extreme price swings, given the scale and speed of the activity.