Prices and trading volume for Ethereum NFT collection Moonbirds rose sharply on Friday afternoon, after the announcement that Bored Ape Yacht Club maker Yuga Labs had has acquired the IP for the collection next to maker Proof. But significant spikes in the past few days have fueled insider trading speculation ahead of the revelation.
This is evident from data from the blockchain analysis platform CryptoSlamdaily sales volume for Moonbirds NFTs was below $100,000 every day this month through February 13, with only one exception: February 4, with a value of approximately $141,000.
But on February 14, Moonbirds’ daily sales volume increased fivefold from the previous day to approximately $460,000, with nearly four times as many transactions as before. And on February 15, sales volume remained high at approximately $333,000. So today, sales increased after the afternoon announcement, with a daily total of approximately $3.1 million and continuing to rise.
A look at the project’s price floor – or the price of the cheapest listed asset in the collection – shows a similar spike in the days leading up to Friday’s announcement.
The price was around $2,680 worth of ETH on Monday afternoon, according to data from NFT price floor, and then started climbing before taking off on Wednesday to reach $5,000. From there, the price began to decline, but spiked again on Friday after the announcement, briefly rising above $6,000 worth of ETH. At the time of writing, it’s only about $5,170.
Rising asset prices following the deal announcement are not a huge surprise, but there is no clear indication of what would cause such a rise in advance, other than insider trading. And influencers, developers and community members took to Crypto Twitter on Friday to highlight the potential for insider trading.
Moonbirds chart before the tweet about Yuga’s acquisition.
No, definitely no insider trading here. pic.twitter.com/UqV0DeXUr8
— cygaar (@0xCygaar) February 16, 2024
Tweeting a sales/price chart for the week showing the inexplicable Wednesday spike on Wednesday, pseudonymous blockchain developer cygar wrote, “Moonbirds chart before Yuga acquisition tweet. No, there is certainly no insider trading here.”
Another well-known pseudonymous crypto trader and influencer, Cirrus, joked that a wallet that purchased over 150 NFTs from the Proof ecosystem in recent days was “Nancy Pelosi’s wallet.” The US representative and former Speaker of the House of Representatives has been accused of stock trading based on insider information.
Nancy Pelosi’s NFT wallet found
80 Moonbirds, 71 Moonbird Mythics, 28 Oddities and 13 Mythic eggs purchased in the last 7 days
Sitting on a few hundred thousand profits after the Yuga news pic.twitter.com/VqImNT77tA
— Cirrus (@CirrusNFT) February 16, 2024
“We were up to a few hundred thousand in profit after the Yuga news,” Cirrus wrote.
Declutter contacted representatives from Yuga Labs and Proof about any known leaks prior to the deal’s official announcement. A Proof representative told us Declutter that there was “no leak that we were aware of,” while Yuga Labs declined comment on the matter.