Wintermute’s Alleged Sell-Off Linked to Altcoin Plunge

On April 1, prices of approximately ten low-capitalisation coins such as ACT, DEXE, and HIPPO exhibited significant declines, with some dropping by as much as 50%, as noted by observers.

What’s going on?

Wintermute is dumping assets from wallets where they acted as market makers. Either they got hacked — or something else is going on. No clear explanation yet.

Strange things happening:$ACT dropped 50% in minutes, ~10 tokens crashing while the market is… pic.twitter.com/PNWqsRAnSD

— Vladislav ? (@v_poltavetss) April 1, 2025

“Wintermute is dumping assets from wallets where they acted as market makers. Either they got hacked, or something else is going on. No clear explanation yet,” wrote one observer.

X-account The Data Nerd, citing Arkham data, confirmed the company’s sale of meme tokens ACT, MUBARAK, TUT, BABYDOGE, and others.

A trader known as DJJ suggested that the crash was triggered by the forced liquidation of Wintermute’s leveraged long positions due to the implementation of leverage and margin restrictions for perpetual options on certain tokens on Binance.

This led to a drop in contract prices and widening spreads, with automated arbitrage by bots increasing spot trading volumes and further depressing prices, exacerbating the crash and causing market panic.

A user under the pseudonym Daniele speculated that the market maker was closing positions in collaboration with World Liberty Financial regarding the announced stablecoin USD1.

If you’re wondering what is Wintermute doing right now here is my 2 cents:

We saw that Wintermute interacted with USD1 the strablecoin from World Liberty Financial.
That being a major deal for them, they are derisking all assets that might be non-compliant or non-matching the…

— Daniele ? ( Degen Arc ) (@danielesesta) April 1, 2025

“As this is a major deal for them, they are derisking all assets that might be non-compliant or not aligned with the new brand direction chosen as an institutional player,” he stated.

“Bring Back the Green Candles!”

Wintermute’s competitors seized the opportunity to entice affected projects into collaboration. Algorithmic market maker Vortex offered to get in touch following the “outrageously massive dump.”

CEO of DWF Labs, Andrei Grachev, promised to allocate funds for buybacks and develop recovery plans for the assets.

If your project has been affected by this weird dump, reach out to us.
We are ready to allocate funds for a buy back and strategize a recovery plan for your token. @DWFLabs and our cash are here for help
We need to get God Green Candles back
LFG!

— Andrei Grachev (@ag_dwf) April 1, 2025

“We need to bring back the ‘God Green Candles’. Let’s go!” he wrote.

“This is Madness”

Wintermute founder Evgeny Gaevoy denied the company’s involvement in the crash.

I’m Not Locked in Here With You, You’re Locked in Here With Me

— wishfulcynic (@EvgenyGaevoy) April 1, 2025

In response to a comment that “this is madness,” the entrepreneur quoted Rorschach from the comic “Watchmen”:

“I’m not locked in here with you, you’re locked in here with me.”

Back in March, Binance took action against an unknown market maker for manipulating the price of the MOVE token.