- FLOKI plummeted 17% as a dormant whale moved 15.22B tokens to Binance.
- The whale’s reactivation after 2.5 years triggered panic and heavy sell-offs.
- FLOKI’s weak technicals suggest further declines amid broader crypto market struggles.
FLOKI, one of the largest meme coins, saw its value plummet by over 17%, reaching a low of $0.00012658, the weakest point since August 21.
This drop marks a 64% decline from its highest point this year, underscoring the volatile nature of the meme coin market.
Floki’s price decline coincides with a broader bear trend in the cryptocurrency market, as Bitcoin struggles to remain above the $60,000 mark. At press time, BTC price was $59,588.11, down 2.47 over the past week correlating with a drop in the global crypto market capitalization which has dropped from over $2.3 trillion earlier in the week to $2.09 trillion at press time.
Dormant Floki whale reactivated after 2.5 years
The primary catalyst for this sharp decline was the sudden activity of a dormant whale account linked to the team behind Floki. After 2.5 years of inactivity, this account moved 15.22 billion FLOKI tokens, valued at $2.27 million, to Binance.
The $FLOKI price is 🔻 17.7% in the past 24 hours.
A wallet linked to @RealFlokiInu returned after 2.5 years of dormancy and deposited 15.22B $FLOKI ($2.27M) to #Binance 9 hours ago, just before the price plunged.
These $FLOKI were released from the Floki deployer to this… pic.twitter.com/9eDNqy3Mhr
— Spot On Chain (@spotonchain) August 30, 2024
This dormant account had originally received the tokens from the Floki deployer in early 2022 following a FLOKI contract upgrade dubbed “Nottingham Upgrade” that occurred in January 2022. At the time the FLOKI was priced at only $0.0000307.
The transfer, which occurred just nine hours before the price plunge, created panic among investors, leading to heavy selling activity and significant outflows from both centralized and decentralized exchanges.
Data from Spotonchain revealed that net outflows of FLOKI from centralized exchanges fell to their lowest point since August 21, while outflows from decentralized exchanges hit their highest level in over a week.
On the same day, 10% of the Simon’s cat ($CAT) supply was airdropped to holders of the FLOKI token on Binance’s exchange as had been communicated earlier.
Given the 2.5 years of dormancy of the wallet and the transfer to Binance’s exchange, it is more likely that this wallet aimed to qualify for the $CAT airdrop rather than sell. On-chain data shows that many other holders moved their FLOKI to Binance as well.
FLOKI remains a major player in the meme coin space
Despite its recent struggles, Floki remains a significant player in the meme coin space, with a market cap of over $1.27 billion. The developers have been working to transition Floki from a mere meme coin to an active ecosystem, launching initiatives such as TokenFi, Floki Locker, and the Valhalla NFT metaverse.
However, with weak technical indicators, including a death cross pattern and a negative Percentage Price Oscillator, further declines for the meme coin seem possible in the near term.