Yuga Labs’ Acquisition of Moonbirds NFT Development Team PROOF Raises Suspicions of Insider Trading
NFT marketing company Yuga Labs announced yesterday (16th) that it has acquired the development team behind the well-known NFT series “Moonbirds,” called Proof, and will incorporate the IP into its own metaverse game “Otherside.” However, there seems to be undisclosed insider trading involved in this acquisition.
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Yuga Labs acquires PROOF
Existence of insider trading?
KOL: Someone bought hundreds of Moonbirds NFT a week before the acquisition
Yuga Labs’ latest announcement stated that the company has acquired PROOF, the creator of the Moonbirds NFT series. Specifically, Yuga Labs will take over the PROOF Collective, Moonbirds, and other derivative NFT brands, including Oddities, Mythics, and Grails.
At the same time, Yuga Labs CEO Daniel Alegre revealed the future direction of Moonbirds in the statement: “As an NFT series with tremendous potential, Moonbirds shares many brand elements with Otherside, so we will introduce it into Otherside.” He added, “As a company committed to advocating blockchain art, culture, and community, we are delighted to have PROOF join the Yuga ecosystem.”
In addition, PROOF CEO Kevin Rose will continue to serve as an advisor to the PROOF team after a brief handover period.
Previously, despite being seen as the successor to BAYC, the floor price of Moonbirds has dropped over 95% to only 1.8 ETH from its historical high of 40 ETH.
(6 reasons why Moonbirds’ legend is shattered! Founder’s statement sparks controversy: prices drop even less than Bored Apes)
Acquisition events have always caused drastic fluctuations in not only traditional financial markets but also the Web3 market. However, in the past few days since the news of PROOF’s acquisition was released, the price of Moonbirds has significantly increased, leading to speculation within the community about insider trading.
Data from the on-chain analysis platform CryptoSlam shows that the daily trading volume of Moonbirds in February was mostly below $100,000.
However, on February 14th, the daily trading volume of Moonbirds increased fivefold compared to the previous day, reaching nearly $460,000. The volume remained at a recent high of around $330,000 the following day and surged to $3.1 million after the acquisition announcement on the evening of the 16th, continuing to increase.
Regarding this phenomenon, many KOLs have expressed that apart from potential insider trading, there is no explanation for the sudden increase in trading volume.
Mocaverse NFT advisor Cygaar sarcastically posted a chart of Moonbirds’ trading activity in the past week, stating that there is definitely no insider trading here.
Another KOL, Cirrus, pointed out that a wallet has made hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit in the past few days by purchasing 80 Moonbirds, 71 Mythics, 28 Oddities, and 13 Mythic Eggs NFT, following the announcement of the acquisition.
Moonbirds
Moonbirds Mythics
Moonbirds Oddities
Otherside
PROOF
Yuga Labs
Additional Reading
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NFT celebrities hacked again, PROOF/Moonbirds founder loses nearly $2 million worth of NFTs
