RAVE token sees massive short squeeze
Weekly Market Update #113
This week’s edition is brought to you by TenX Protocols Inc., a multi-asset digital treasury for Solana, Sui, and Sei, where Networks Become Revenue.
Before jumping into last week’s action, check out our latest research piece on LayerTwo Labs:
Weekly Market Developments
Covenant AI exits Bittensor as founder dumps $10M in subnet tokens - link
Worldcoin announces WLD unlock rate will decrease by 43% in July - link
Ethereum Foundation to sell 5,000 ETH via TWAP - link
Omer Goldberg discusses leaving Aave - link
Virtuals introduces Eastworlds - link
Tether launches self-custody Tether Wallet targeting global users - link
Tether leads $150M support for Drift Protocol recovery plan - link
South Korean payments firm NHN KCP to build its own Avalanche Layer 1 - link
eToro acquires self-custodial wallet firm Zengo - link
World Liberty Fi moves to unlock 62B tokens amid $75M loan controversy - link
EigenCloud introduces Project Darkbloom to unlock idle compute for AI - link
Fear & Greed Index
ETF Flows
BTC had Net +$771M for the week across 3 inflow days and 2 outflow days.
BlackRock's IBIT dominated with +$612M (79% of total inflows). Fidelity's FBTC followed with +$152M, maintaining its position as the consistent second-place fund. Tuesday saw the week's only outflow at -$159M before resuming inflows. BTC saw the largest outflows at -$15M.
The best day ended up being Monday with +$471M across all funds.
ETH ended the trading period with +$187M for the week across 3 inflow days and 2 outflow days. BlackRock's ETHA led with +$168M (90% of total). ETHB followed with +$66M.
The best day fell on Monday with +$120M. Overall, ETH flows were at 24% of BTC activity.
Spotlight: Lido DAO accumulation program passes
Lido DAO voted to authorise the Growth Committee to execute a one-time LDO accumulation program using up to 10,000 stETH from the DAO Treasury, structured in discrete 1,000 stETH batches. Each batch goes through an Easy Track motion with a mandatory three-day objection window, predefined price caps, and a slippage tolerance of no more than 3%. Execution venues span both on-chain platforms (CoW Swap, 1inch, Uniswap) and centralised exchanges (Binance, Bybit, OKX, Gate, Bitget), using a combination of DCA, TWAP, and limit orders to limit market impact. All acquired LDO is returned to the DAO Treasury. The Growth Committee must publish a report after each batch and a final completion report within 14 calendar days. The vote ran April 7–14, 2026 and passed with 92.18% in favour (64.5M votes for, 5.5M against, 66 voters).
The proposal’s thesis is a fundamental-to-price dislocation: the LDO:ETH ratio sat at 0.00015 at submission time, a 67% discount to its 2024–2025 median of 0.00046, despite protocol metrics that held up comparatively well. Lido’s staking fee revenue declined 23% year-over-year in 2025, yet the LDO:ETH ratio fell 65% over the same period; operating costs improved 13% and the DAO Rewards rate rose from 4.95% to 6.10%. The Growth Committee’s position is that market price has moved far in excess of any fundamental deterioration, creating a capital-efficient opportunity to accumulate governance tokens at a discount using yield-bearing treasury assets (stETH). This program is explicitly separate from the NEST automated buyback framework, which activates based on ETH price and annual revenue thresholds; this is a discretionary, time-limited response to an unusual market condition.
Top Gainers & Losers
$RAVE is the token of RaveDAO, a Web3 music protocol offering on-chain ticketing and staking tied to live EDM event revenues, with claimed partnerships with Binance, OKX, and Warner Music and $3M in 2025 revenue. Despite those real-world credentials, the 6,000%+ surge from $0.25 to an all-time high above $17 in one week was almost entirely mechanical. The team transferred ~$42M worth of tokens to Bitget on-chain, which the market read as incoming sell pressure and responded to by piling into short positions. The team then withdrew the tokens without selling and pumped spot price, triggering a liquidation cascade: with ~90% of supply locked in just three team-controlled wallets and only ~24% of the 1-billion token supply in circulation, there was almost no float to absorb the squeeze. Over $43M in RAVE futures were force-liquidated in 24 hours (third-highest in the entire market behind only BTC and ETH), open interest peaked above $250M, and daily volume hit $375M, nearly 30% of its total market cap. On-chain investigators including ZachXBT flagged it publicly as a deliberate bait-and-squeeze.
Disclaimer: This research report is exactly that — a research report. It is not intended to serve as financial advice, nor should you blindly assume that any of the information is accurate without confirming through your own research. Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and other digital assets are incredibly risky, and nothing in this report should be considered an endorsement to buy or sell any asset. Never invest more than you are willing to lose, and understand the risk that you are taking. Do your own research. All information in this report is for educational purposes only and should not be the basis for any investment decisions that you make.