Waves, a Layer 1 blockchain known as ‘Russia’s Ethereum’, has suffered a reversal of fortune as accusations of Ponzi schemes and market manipulation fly in a wild week of action.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of crypto exchange FTX, got swept into the drama as one of Russia’s major crypto plays went sideways.
The project’s native token WAVES began to surge a few days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February. This led to speculation that Russians were using the platform to circumvent Western sanctions after several of the nation’s banks were cut off from the Swift messaging system.
WAVES soared 600% in a month to an all-time high of $62 on March 31.
During the same period, the market capitalization of Neutrino USD, Waves’ native stablecoin, nearly doubled to $900M.
On Apr. 4, WAVES lost more than a quarter of its value, dropping to a low of $33.27, down almost 50% from its March 31 high.
This coincided with Neutrino USD losing its dollar peg as it briefly traded below $0.60 before rebounding. It was trading at $0.82 in the early morning UK time Tuesday.
Neutrino USD, or USDN, is an algorithmic stablecoin that is collateralized by WAVES tokens. In a way, it operates in a similar fashion to UST and LUNA, as USDN can be minted with and redeemed for WAVES.
USDN has a native staking yield that serves as its main source of demand and is the primary usecase on the Waves blockchain….
