In a recent podcast episode, executives of a top 100 cryptocurrency unveiled a market manipulation scheme by the FTX exchange. The now-bankrupt FTX has allegedly operated many similar market manipulation activities, intentionally harming some projects for the benefit of others.
On October 12, the Full Shard Podcast aired its first episode featuring three co-founders of the MultiversX Labs, formerly Elrond. Starting at around 00:55:00, Beniamin Mincu, Lucian Mincu, and Lucian Todea discussed their experience with FTX’s market manipulation.
According to the three executives, Sam Bankman-Fried’s bankrupt exchange engaged in massively pumping, farming, dumping, and then shorting MultiversX tokens. These actions, as discussed, were primarily responsible for EGLD’s volatile price action in the early days, significantly harming the project.
This prolonged drop happened when the entire market crashed amid the Terra-LUNA collapse, putting all cryptocurrencies in a bear cycle. Now, EGLD is trying to recover from these levels, currently trading at $26.57 – below its 30-week exponential moving average.
Learning from past mistakes and moving to a new crypto bull cycle
The recent revelations shed light on what could have sparked three years of poor price action to MultiversX. Interestingly, the chain is often praised among analysts and experts for its technology, being called the “Holy Grail of crypto” by Europe’s oldest crypto fund founder and CIO.
Nevertheless, it is unlikely that the FTX market manipulation caused the crash alone, and other economic factors should be considered. Incentive rewards like airdrops and other inflationary tokenomics can create strong selling pressures even when there is no market manipulation.
On the other hand, it is known that FTX, Alameda, and Sam Bankman-Fried had large positions in Solana (SOL), being one of SOL’s strongest sources of demand in the previous cycle.
Insights, as shared in this podcast episode, are of immense value in understanding history and learning from past mistakes. Analysts speculate that a bull market could be starting and an altcoin season is “just around the corner.” More than ever, investors should study these cases and prepare for what could be the start of a new cycle.