Good day everyone,
I hope you are all well and enjoying the new year, welcome to CryptoGod-1's blog on all things crypto. Today I will be looking at the recent, and rapid, rise and fall of Tellor, who broke their all-time high just to wipe out all the gains hours later.
Tellor (TRB)
The little know token Tellor (TRB) took the crypto market by storm at the end of 2023, as the token experienced a 150% surge to a new all-time high above $600. Within the course of 13 hours the token not only broke a new all-time high, but went on to crash so hard that it erased all the gains. This all took place on the 31st of December and has sparked serious question regarding price and market manipulation.
When looking at blockchain data from Etherscan, the on-chain analysts behind the X account Lookonchain noted how the Tellor team managed to transfer 4,211 TRB, which was valued at approximately $2.4 million during the surge, to a wallet labelled as belonging to Coinbase. This is noted to have taken place at around 8:41 pm UTC. The timing of this transfer aligned almost perfectly with the high during the price pump which has further added to suspicions of market manipulation.
When the sudden drop in the price of Tellor took place, it caused more than $68 million in liquidations. This is according to data from CoinGlass which was later cited by blockchain analytics services Lookonchain in a Jan. 1 post to X (formerly Twitter).
Another theory going around about the sudden price movements is that the wild price swings could be attributed to 26% of the circulating supply of TRB. This is according to blockchain analytics platform Spot on Chain, and they noted that the 26% is distributed between just 20 "whale" wallets. This group of whales began buying up TRB at prices near $15. Since then they have been gradually depositing their holdings to centralized exchanges amid seemingly artificial price movements to lock in higher profits, noted Spot On Chain.
The loses were felt further afield as blockchain protocol Synthetix has been impacted by the price moves in TRB. According to the founder, Kain Warwick, this led to around $2 million in losses for holders of his protocol’s native SNX token. This happened due to the sudden change in open interest and price of the TRB token and Synthetix's could not properly represent this in their decentralised derivatives market. Warwick noted:
“Several short positions were opened as the price spiked today and with the dislocation of spot and perp prices there was no [arbitrage] to balance it.”
Tellor operates as a decentralized oracle protocol, and TRB serves as the protocol’s utility and governance token. TRB is found on many major exchanges, with the likes of Binance, OKX, and Coinbase all listing the token. Binance was responsible for around half of the trading volume witnessed during the spike. So far the team behind Tellor has not issued any statements regarding the unusual price movements in TRB token.
Have a great day.
Peace. CryptoGod-1.
Referral Links and Follow Me:
