The small-cap altcoin Tellor (TRB) underwent a remarkable 150% surge to reach a new all-time high exceeding $600. However, this surge was short-lived, as the cryptocurrency experienced a rapid crash that completely wiped out all the gains within a few hours on December 31, leading to suspicions of price manipulation.
According to blockchain data from Etherscan, analysts from the on-chain research team Lookonchain noted that the Tellor team transferred 4,211 TRB, valued at approximately $2.4 million, to a wallet identified as belonging to Coinbase at around 8:41 pm UTC. The timing of this transfer aligned almost perfectly with the peak of the price pump, fueling suspicions of market manipulation.
The abrupt decline in Tellor’s price resulted in over $68 million in liquidations, as reported by CoinGlass data cited by Lookonchain on January 1.
Concentrated TRB supply
Spot on Chain, an on-chain analytics firm, highlighted on X that a significant portion of the circulating supply of Tellor (TRB) was concentrated in a limited number of wallets. Specifically, 26% of the circulating supply was held by just 20 large wallets.
The firm revealed that these wallets had amassed the token at a price of approximately $15, and the price had subsequently increased by around 15 times.
Spot on Chain suggested that over the past two months, these large wallets had been gradually depositing their tokens onto exchanges, initiating a pump-and-dump cycle to liquidate their holdings. This observation raises concerns about potential market manipulation and the impact it may have had on Tellor’s volatile price movements.
Synthetix users face losses
According to Kain Warwick, the founder of the blockchain protocol Synthetix, the significant price fluctuations in Tellor’s TRB token resulted in approximately $2 million in losses for holders of Synthetix’s native SNX token. These losses were attributed to the abrupt changes in open interest and TRB token prices, which were not accurately reflected in Synthetix’s decentralized derivatives markets.
Warwick explained that multiple short positions were initiated as the TRB price spiked, and due to the dislocation between spot and perpetual prices, there was no arbitrage opportunity to balance the situation.
Tellor is a decentralized oracle protocol, and its TRB token serves as both the utility and governance token for the protocol. TRB is actively traded on major exchanges such as Binance, OKX, and Coinbase, with Binance accounting for nearly half of the trading volume in the past 24 hours.
As of now, the Tellor team has not issued any statements regarding the unusual price movements in TRB.
