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Defiance Capital Founder Claims Crypto Prices Are Being Manipulated

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Arthur Cheong, founder of Defiance Capital, has raised concerns over alleged market manipulation within the crypto industry by projects and market makers.

He accused them of artificially sustaining token prices while centralized exchanges (CEXs) turn a blind eye.

Cheong Warns Market Is Becoming ‘Uninvestable’

In an April 14 post on X, Cheong claimed that the liquid crypto market is plagued by a “complete black box” system in which the involved parties collaborate to engineer token valuations.

“You don’t know whether the price is a result of organic demand and supply,” he wrote, “or simply due to projects and market makers colluding to fix the price to achieve other objectives.”

Cheong also criticized the CEXs, suggesting they are deliberately ignoring these practices despite their damaging impact. He noted that the altcoin market is increasingly resembling a “lemon’s market,” where reduced trust makes quality harder to identify.

He further argued that token generation events (TGEs) in 2025 have been poorly priced, with many coins dropping between 70% and 90% within months of listing, leaving buyers facing major losses.

The Defiance Capital CIO concluded by emphasizing that unless major players in the crypto space take action to fix these issues, many parts of the market will remain unsafe for serious investors in the future.

MANTRA Crash Sparks Manipulation Fears

His comments follow the April 13 collapse of MANTRA’s native token, OM, which saw its market value nosedive by 90% in a matter of hours. John Patrick Mullin, a co-founder of the protocol, claimed the crash was caused by forced liquidations carried out by CEXs.

However, blockchain data revealed unusual activity in the days leading up to the incident. Analytics platform Lookonchain reported that 17 wallets sent 43.6 million OM tokens, about 4.5% of all coins in circulation, to exchanges starting on April 7. Two of those wallets were linked to Laser Digital, a known investor in MANTRA, raising suspicions of insider selling.

Meanwhile, Spot On Chain said whale OM holders moved 14.27 million tokens to OKX three days before the crash. Further, they had bought over 84 million OM for $564.7 million in March, which added to fears of a planned sell-off.

Earlier in the year, the Libra token faced similar scrutiny. Following Argentinian President Javier Milei’s public endorsement,  the coin’s market cap surged to $4 billion within hours before crashing by over 90%, wiping out millions in investor funds.

The country’s Chamber of Deputies has since approved an investigation into LIBRA, focusing on Milei’s social media promotion of the meme coin and its subsequent collapse.

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Cryptocurrency

800,000,000 DOGE Bought in 2 Days: What Are Dogecoin Whales Preparing For?

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TL;DR

  • Dogecoin whales went on a massive accumulation spree in the past two days, scooping up over 800,000,000 tokens.
  • The question now arises whether they are preparing for a major rally, perhaps driven by encouraging news on the DOGE ETF front.

Dogecoin whales are a crucial part of the OG meme coin’s ecosystem, and they tend to make big moves during bull and bear markets. For instance, they went all in on the asset after the US elections, which helped it skyrocket from $0.15 to $0.5 within a couple of months.

However, they showed a mixed behavior in the next few months, including some substantial sell-offs. Naturally, DOGE’s price reacted, and it tumbled from the aforementioned peak to a low of $0.13 earlier this week.

After the most recent sales, these large market participants have turned the tables once again, beginning to accumulate substantial portions of the largest meme coin.

In the past 48 hours alone, they have purchased a whopping 800,000,000 coins. In terms of USD value, this stash equals almost $130 million, given DOGE’s current price of $0.16.

X users speculated that whales might be preparing for a further rally propelled by a potential approval of a Dogecoin ETF in the States. The landscape around such products has heated up lately, with numerous companies filing to launch exchange-traded funds tracking DOGE’s performance.

Polymarket shows a 62% chance of such financial vehicles getting approved in the States by the end of the year, but the percentages drop to 22% when the deadline is set at July 31.

Crypto analysts continue to be bullish on DOGE, predicting a significant increase in the following weeks of up to 3x, which would push it to and beyond $0.5.

Meanwhile, one of Dogecoin’s developers recently warned users to stay away from scammers impersonating the project and promoting fake DOGE-related tokens.

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DeFiance Capital Founder Compares Altcoin Market to a ‘Lemon’s Market’

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As anticipation builds for a potential altcoin season, investor sentiment remains conflicted amid growing concerns over the quality and transparency of many newly listed tokens.

While some traders are positioning for an upside in smaller-cap digital assets, skepticism is mounting around the increasing number of questionable altcoins appearing on centralized exchanges.

These tokens, often backed by little more than hype or obscure teams, are raising red flags across the industry.

Altcoin Market Quality Declining

DeFiance Capital founder Arthur Cheong, for one, has raised serious concerns about the transparency of the liquid crypto market in a recent tweet. He highlighted what he sees as the growing problem of undisclosed collaboration between crypto projects and market makers, which may result in artificially sustained token prices.

In a recent tweet, Cheong warned that this lack of transparency makes it difficult to distinguish between organic market activity and price manipulation. He also criticized centralized exchanges (CEXs) for ignoring these practices, which he believes are eroding trust in the altcoin market. Cheong even said that the current landscape is similar to a “lemon’s market,” where investor confidence is rapidly declining.

Additionally, he pointed out that most token generation event (TGE) listings this year have seen prices collapse by 70-90% shortly after launch, which has left investors with massive losses. He called for major industry players to take action and warned that without reform, a significant portion of the market would remain uninvestable.

MANTRA’s OM Token Controversy

The founder’s comments come at a time as MANTRA’s OM token experienced a sharp decline, losing over 90% of its value in just a span of an hour on April 14th. The event reignited fears of insider trading and tokenomics manipulation.

The exchange highlighted major alterations to OM’s tokenomics since October 2024 and flagged unusual trading activity from related wallet addresses dating back to March.

The OM token crash adds to a growing list of failed or troubled crypto assets, a trend that has only intensified over the past decade. According to crypto wallet provider Tangem, from 2013 to 2025, over 12,000 cryptocurrencies have failed, while a total of 12,383 coins have become defunct. The main causes behind these failures range from low trading activity and project abandonment to scams and failed ICOs.

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Top Cardano (ADA) Price Predictions as of Late

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TL;DR

  • Analysts foresee a major rally, with targets as high as $3.50, citing strong weekly performance and other factors.
  • Despite bullish momentum, recent whale sell-offs and uncertain macro conditions could spark a new wave of downward pressure on ADA’s price.

Further Rise on the Way?

Cardano’s native token plummeted to a five-month low of almost $0.50 on April 7 when the entire cryptocurrency market collapsed after the trading war between the United States and the rest of the world escalated.

Similar to many other leading digital assets, though, ADA experienced a solid revival in the following days and currently trades at approximately $0.65.

ADA Price
ADA Price, Source: CoinGecko

Multiple market observers are optimistic that a much more substantial rally could be on the horizon. The X user Sssebi (who often touches upon ADA’s price dynamics) noted the asset’s positive performance in the past week, envisioning a 25% pump in the short term based on potential developments on the global trade front:

“Let’s see what tariff news we get this week, I have a feeling it’s going to be positive and ADA gets to rally to $0.80.”

For his part, Dan Gambardello told his almost 300,000 followers on X that Cardano’s cryptocurrency could explode beyond $3.50 if it matches XRP’s market capitalization, which currently stands at over $125 billion.

“That’s just the starting line for XRP this cycle. It should be for ADA, too,” he predicted.

Strategic partnerships or other key developments may also act as price catalysts for the token. Not long ago, some crypto community members speculated that Cardano and Ripple may soon shake hands on a mutual collaboration. The rumors followed a video on X that Ripple uploaded and started with Cardano’s logo.

The possible launch of a spot ADA ETF in the US could ignite a rally, too. The leading digital asset manager Grayscale officially filed for a Cardano exchange-traded fund with the New York Stock Exchange in February, while the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) acknowledged the application shortly after.

The product will allow investors to gain exposure to ADA without holding it directly. This might increase interest in the cryptocurrency, attract an additional number of people into the ecosystem, and positively impact the price of the underlying token. Polymarket estimates there’s a 47% possibility the investment vehicle will go live before the end of 2025. 

How About a New Correction?

Contrary to the bullish predictions, the recent whales’ activity signals that ADA might experience another pullback soon. The renowned analyst Ali Martinez revealed that large investors (those who own between one million and ten million coins) have dumped more than 100 million tokens in the last week.

Such moves increase the circulating supply of ADA and could be followed by a price retreat if demand doesn’t react accordingly. Furthermore, the whales’ actions could trigger fear and panic among smaller players, which might lead to a chain reaction of selling.

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