YGG Surged 580% Before Crashing, Why Are Whales Rapidly Selling?

The Yield Guild Games (YGG) token recently surged, rising by 580% in less than a week before crashing, as visible in the daily chart. YGG is currently changing hands at $0.37 with a market capitalization of over $101 million when writing on August 7. 

Prices have since retraced from the $0.99 recorded earlier today as the token fell by over 60%. The recent spike and general volatility have seen trading volumes soar as trading activity is concentrated on Binance and KuCoin.

Amidst the notable growth, there are reports of venture capital (VC) companies that initially backed the project, backing off and reportedly selling the token primarily on Binance. For instance, Lookonchain data on August 7 shows that Bitkraft Ventures and DWF Labs have moved their YGG to Binance and will likely sell. 

Last year, DWF Labs received 29.13 million YGG from Yield Guild Games Treasury. However, on-chain data shows that most of these tokens have since been moved to exchanges. 

Bitkraft used Wintermute and FalconX to move coins to Binance. Trackers show that the official Wintermute Trading wallet has deposited 11.1 million YGG to exchanges over the past four days. The crypto market maker still holds 2.5 million YGG. 

Youbi Capital has also deposited 1 million YGG to Binance. Currently, it holds 11.6 million YGG. Sfermion is also joining the selling bandwagon, which initially claimed 1.2 million YGG. It used FalconX, a provider serving crypto whales, to deposit the token to Binance.

Yield Guild Games is a gaming guild primarily focusing on play-to-earn (P2E) blockchain games. As a community, the platform uses non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and has created a collaborative network of players and investors to navigate NFT gaming. 

In mid-July, YGG partnered with Axie Infinity’s developer to release SUPERQUESTS. The feature, Yield Guild Games said, aims to enable guild members to engage in web3 games and earn enhanced in-game rewards. They added that this initiative was a significant step towards improving the web3 gaming experience for members.  

Over the months, NFT, metaverse, and blockchain gaming activity have rapidly contracted as token asset prices fell throughout 2022. Furthermore, fears of regulatory crackdown appear to be discouraging developers. In June, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) cited AXS by Axie Infinity as an example of unregistered security.