Points of focus:

• RAVE collapsed from $26 to $1 in 24 hours, wiping approximately $6.3B in market cap and triggering $43.7M in leveraged liquidations.
• ZachXBT accused insiders of controlling 90%+ of supply and orchestrating a pump-and-dump across Binance, Bitget, and Gate, offering a $25,000 bounty for whistleblowers.
• Binance, Bitget, and Gate each confirmed they are investigating. RaveDAO denied involvement.

RAVE, the native token of Web3 entertainment project RaveDAO, crashed 95% from $26 to approximately $1 within 24 hours on April 18 after blockchain investigator ZachXBT publicly accused insiders of running a coordinated pump-and-dump scheme across three major exchanges. RAVE tokens were distributed as a free airdrop to attendees of a rave side event at Consensus Hong Kong this year.

CoinGlass data shows approximately $43M in RAVE futures positions were liquidated in 24 hours, trailing only Bitcoin and Ethereum in derivatives wipeouts for the day. Open interest collapsed from $673M at peak to $103M. The collapse erased roughly $6.3B in market capitalization from a token that had briefly surpassed Litecoin and Avalanche in rankings.

Pump and dump activity for $RAVE originated on @bitget @binance @Gate

Call to action for both @heyibinance @GracyBitget to do better and launch internal investigation offboarding the responsible actors.

Offering up to $10K bounty of my personal funds for whistleblowers to… pic.twitter.com/NhZDubdU9R

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) April 18, 2026

The setup

ZachXBT’s April 18 post on X laid out the mechanics. Wallets linked to the RaveDAO deployer transferred 18.58M RAVE to Bitget before the rally began, with no announcement and no disclosure. The token was still below $0.50. Ten hours later, the pump started.

A summary of the RAVE -95% price fluctuation from $26 to $1 over the past 24 hours.

RAVE Timeline: April 18, 2026

7:26 am UTC: I posted a call to action for Binance, Bitget, & Gate to investigate RAVE market manipulation and offered a $10K bounty.

10:56 am UTC: I posted an… pic.twitter.com/mivKcdyBrw

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) April 19, 2026

With 74% of Binance traders holding short positions, insiders then withdrew 29.78M tokens from Bitget, stripping sell-side pressure entirely. On-chain data cited by ZachXBT shows approximately $42M in RAVE moved to Bitget, with $32M withdrawn shortly after. The resulting short squeeze sent RAVE from $0.27 to over $14 in seven days. A second leg pushed it to $27.94, briefly surpassing Litecoin and Avalanche in market cap at $6.7B.

ZachXBT said RAVE launched in December 2025 on Binance Alpha, with a total supply of 1 billion. Nine linked addresses controlled approximately 95%. Only 12,139 holders existed at the peak, with the top 10 wallets holding 98.16% of the total supply. This concentration later increased to 90%, controlled by the top 3 addresses, as revealed in our previous analysis.

‘We cannot allow this blatant market manipulation by insiders controlling more than 90% RAVE support to further extract from retail investors,’ ZachXBT wrote. He initially offered a $10,000 personal bounty for whistleblowers, later raising it to $25,000 after community contributions.

Exchanges respond

All three named platforms acknowledged the allegations within hours.

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen was first: 

thanks for highlighting! We’ve started investigating into $RAVE

— Gracy Chen @Bitget (@GracyBitget) April 18, 2026

Binance CEO Richard Teng followed:

Thanks for flagging this with us @zachxbt. We’re looking into it.

We will always do our part to investigate all market misconduct.

— Richard Teng (@_RichardTeng) April 18, 2026

Both exchanges framed their actions as a part of a broader commitment to curbing manipulation, even as they stopped short of naming specific employees or accounts under scrutiny.

Gate, which was also flagged in ZachXBT’s thread, had not issued a detailed statement by the time of publication, though multiple reports noted that trading on the venue formed part of the alleged coordinated squeeze that sent RAVE up more than 4,500 percent before its eventual collapse.

In a follow-up summary post, ZachXBT noted that exchange action came only after public pressure. ‘Each day of delay means retail traders absorb losses while platforms collect fees on the volume,’ he wrote.

RaveDAO denies the involvement

RaveDAO published a six-part statement denying involvement. ‘RaveDAO team is not engaged in, nor responsible for, recent price action,’ the team wrote, framing the situation as noise directed at a project focused on Web3 live events and philanthropy.

1/ We are aware of the rumors and accusations circulating regarding $RAVE and RaveDAO team. We want to be clear: RaveDAO team is not engaged in, nor responsible for, recent price action. We take transparency seriously and remain humbled by the attention, but our focus is on the…

— RaveDAO (@RaveDAO) April 18, 2026

The team acknowledged plans to sell locked tokens for hiring and marketing, but did not address the specific on-chain movements. ZachXBT said he had contacted co-founder Yemu Xu on April 13 and 14 before posting. He was left on read.

The project’s backer list adds complexity. World Liberty Financial, Warner Music Group, Tomorrowland, and YZi Labs, a Web3 incubator with former Binance staff, are all listed as partners or supporters.

Broader pattern

ZachXBT said RAVE is not an isolated case, calling it the most blatant example after reaching a top 15 market cap in just 10 days before crashing 95%. He also flagged six other projects, including SIREN, MYX, and PIPPIN, for similar suspicious activity. On-chain data shows nearly 90% of RAVE’s supply was concentrated in just three wallets.

As of April 20, RAVE trades around $0.50, down 95% from its peak. No exchange has released findings, and no enforcement action has been taken, leaving questions around accountability unresolved.