On July 30, a meme coin known as BaldBaseBald (BALD) launched on Base Community, Coinbase’s new Layer 2 constructed on Optimism. The coin referenced Brian Armstrong, Coinbase’s “bald” founder, and rapidly grew to become a coordination level for speculators on the frontier chain.
Inside two days, the token had reached a market cap of $100 million, with over $25 million in liquidity. Nonetheless, the token’s meteoric rise turned out to be a traditional case of market manipulation, because the deployer behind the token, BaldBaseBald, rug pulled the token and triggered its value to plummet by 85%.
Malicious Market Habits Behind BALD?
Market researcher Thiccy listed all of the transactions from the Bald deployer and uncovered a narrative of malicious market habits. BaldBaseBald added over 6,700 ETH, or over $12.5 million value of liquidity, to the pool within the first 24 hours, a shocking quantity of capital for a meme coin on a brand new chain.
The deployer’s actions had been undoubtedly bullish for speculators, and many individuals speculated that Brian Armstrong had created the coin to drum up hype. Nonetheless, as quickly because the deployer stopped including liquidity to the pool, the worth stagnated and broke down.
24 hours later, the deployer began bidding on BALD once more, inflicting the worth to double. Then, the deployer withdrew over 10.500 Ethereum (ETH), or virtually $20 million value of liquidity, resulting in an 85% drop within the token’s worth.
Thiccy’s evaluation confirmed that the deployer had made a web revenue of two,789 ETH, or 5.2 million {dollars}, after including 6,870 ETH, spending 1,360 ETH shopping for at a median value of 0.0004, and withdrawing 10,704 ETH.
It was shocking how well-capitalized the actor was and the way daring they had been in finishing up this obvious manipulative market habits in the course of the general public mild on Coinbase’s compliance chain. Thiccy Concluded:
And with that, the story of BALD has come to an in depth play silly video games, win silly prizes. Hopefully we are able to study from this as an area this market is rife with market manipulation and unethical shills. Watch out who you belief.
Thiccy advises buyers to regulate their Worry of Lacking Out (FOMO) and never threat greater than they’ll afford to lose, as survival is simply too essential on this sport.
As for BaldBaseBald has eliminated the remainder of the liquidity, bringing their whole Revenue and Loss (PnL) to three,163 ETH, or $5.9 million.
Featured picture from iStock, chart from TradingView.com