Opinion: Filecoin token dump sparked by testnet coins

Analysts at DPRating hypothesised that the sharp drop in the FIL token after launch of the Filecoin network was caused by sales of coins from its testnet. The latter allegedly became valid on the mainnet and were available to miners for sale on exchanges.

That large amount of Filecoin coins the first day were testnet coins that somehow were valid on the main net and were dumped on exchanges.
You can’t make this stuff up.https://t.co/YEmbauxENi

— WhalePanda (@WhalePanda) October 20, 2020

Excessive selling of FIL drained miners’ collateral, forcing them to buy coins on the secondary market. However, the asset’s limited supply prevented them from doing so.

The analysts suggested that miners began to threaten developers by turning off their hashing power. In the end, they secured the unlocking of 25% of the emission earlier than the allotted 180-day term, expanding the amount of available supply.

In this way, DPRating explained the drop in Filecoin’s price on the Gate.io exchange on the evening of October 15 from $230 to $50, and the wave of declines to $30 after listing on Binance and Huobi, where trading started at $400.

According to DPRating, there were a total of 26.5 million test coins on exchanges.

Researchers are asking whether this was a code bug or whether such a possibility was foreseen from the outset.

Filecoin representatives did not comment on the volatile dynamics of FIL.

The crypto community questioned the veracity of the DPRating version until independent verification. For example, Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of the FTX exchange and Alameda Research, holds this view.

Not 100% sure but I think the rumors are false — I *think* that there weren’t 30mm coins hitting exchanges.

You can mostly verify this by confirming that the total volume, in FIL tokens, on exchanges was less than 30mm

— SBF (@SBF_Alameda) October 20, 2020

Bankman-Fried questioned that unlocked coins flooded the market.

Meltem Demirors, CoinShares’s Development Director, did not unequivocally subscribe to this view.

the number i saw was 1.5M about 40 min before main-net launch… still 👀

— Meltem Demirors (@Melt_Dem) October 20, 2020

“I saw 1,5 млн монет примерно за 40 минут до запуска основной сети…”.

Earlier, Justin Sun, accused the Filecoin team of a FIL token dump.

Speculation could have fuelled rumours of a Filecoin miners’ strike, dissatisfied with the project’s economic model. Juan Benet called this absurd.

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