Tellor’s 13-Hour Meteoric Rise and Fall Raises Manipulation Suspicions
A small-cap altcoin known as Tellor (TRB) experienced a 150% surge to a new all-time high above $600, only to witness a crash that erased all the gains within just hours on December 31, sparking suspicions of price manipulation.
Citing blockchain data from Etherscan, the on-chain analysts behind the X account Lookonchain said the Tellor team transferred 4,211 TRB, valued at approximately $2.4 million during the surge, to a wallet labelled as belonging to Coinbase at around 8:41 pm UTC.
The timing aligned almost perfectly with the high during the price pump, adding to suspicions of market manipulation.
In the past 24 hours, $TRB soared to $600 and then plummeted to $137, causing $68M of assets to be liquidated, making it the most liquidated token.
We noticed that the #Tellor team deposited 4,211 $TRB($2.4M) after the price of $TRB skyrocketed.
Address:https://t.co/efHPXCiMiG pic.twitter.com/IBty2Wf2gI
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) January 1, 2024
The sudden drop in Tellor’s price resulted in over $68 million in liquidations, according to CoinGlass data cited by Lookonchain on January 1.
On-chain analytics firm Spot on Chain also noted on X that 26% of the circulating supply of TRB was held by just 20 large wallets.
According to the firm, these wallets accumulated the token at a price of around $15, and the price has since then risen by around 15x.
“Over the past two months, the whales have slowly deposited their tokens onto exchanges, creating a pump-and-dump cycle to liquidate their holdings,” the post added.
Read more on cryptonews.com
