A low-cap cryptocurrency surged more than 10,300% in an instant after users of the anonymous forum site 4chan and Telegram appeared to buy into a rumor that the coin was poised to rally.
A post on 4chan’s business and finance page hyped Opyn yCurve Insurance (OCRV) as the next crypto gem that could skyrocket 100x.
“Strap in. Market cap is only like $8k and this s**t is going to explode, already is shilled on Telegram. Opyn could be like TRB months ago… only that… [but] 100 times cheaper.”
Within a few hours after the 4chan shill, OCRV went ballistic. The crypto token climbed from $0.29 to an all-time high of $3.04.
OCRV is a token from Opyn which is designed to allow users of the decentralized finance platform Curve.fi to insure their deposits.
Insurance tokens protect investors against market volatility, flash crashes, and other systemic risks. But on the day OCRV exploded, traders were buying expired insurance tokens.
As traders bought the tokens, OCRV crashed as fast as it climbed. A couple of hours after hitting its all-time high on May 23rd, OCRV plunged to $0.228, a devaluation of over 92%.
OCRV’s case appears to be a classic pump and dump scheme and a cautionary tale for the dangers of investing in the nascent crypto markets, where coins with low volume can rise exponentially before quickly crashing back to where they began.