A dozen Ethereum addresses bought several NFTs in the days before Yuga Labs’ acquisition of Meebits from Larva Labs on March 11 prompted a price rise. According to PeckShield data, 14 Ethereum addresses (with no past history of buying mainstream NFT collections) purchased 159 Meebits between March 5 and March 11, prompting charges of insider trading.
The transaction volume of the 3D avatar NFT project Meebits had surged by 250 percent in the previous seven days, according to data released earlier on March 13. As a result, both the number of wallets interacting with the NFT series and the floor price have increased by 235 percent. The lowest Meebits NFT price on the secondary market right now is around $12,720.
According to a study, large whales may be to blame for Meebits’ current market performance, and many giant whale wallets are actively buying Meebits.
Insiders are generating large gains off of the industry’s dramatic price swings, according to the unregulated world of digital collectibles. Many NFTs have seen their prices skyrocket in the last year, thanks to collections like the CryptoPunks and Pudgy Penguins attracting a flood of speculative investment. It’s also been dogged by rumors that traders are buying and selling the same item to create the illusion of increased demand, a practice known as wash trading.
After an employee traded several goods before they were published on OpenSea’s homepage last year, the leading NFT marketplace OpenSea restricted employees from trading NFT collections offered on the platform and from utilizing confidential information to trade.
The Twitter account NFTethics recently called out folks who purchased Meebits before the agreement was disclosed. Even still, hours before the acquisition was disclosed, there was significant speculation about the deal on Twitter and messaging networks like Discord.
