Trove once had a perfect narrative.

As a Perp DEX focusing on collectibles and RWAs, Trove claimed to be able to transform illiquid "cultural assets" such as Pokémon cards, CSGO skins, and luxury watches into tradable financial assets, providing collectors with a hedging venue.

However, in just ten days, the Trove team put on a farce through a series of jaw-dropping operations, incidentally emptying the pockets of onlookers.

Bait

In late October last year, Trove founder @unwisecap talked extensively about "Perp All The Things" in several articles and announced that Trove would be built on HIP-3, whetting the community's appetite.

Over the following month, Trove successively announced partnerships with Kalshi and CARDS (Collector_Crypt), receiving official endorsements from both well-known projects in response (P.S. As of the time of writing, Kalshi has already completed a "purge," deleting the replies under Trove's official account)

In mid-December, Trove announced a $20+ million acquisition of 500,000 HYPE tokens to meet the integration requirements of HIP-3. Subsequently, the testnet scoring plan was launched, and the platform's trading volume exceeded $1 million within two weeks, everything was progressing as expected. Until...

Insider Trading Playbook

On January 6, Trove suddenly announced a $20 million FDV ICO, with a public sale adopting a "super-raising" model, offering priority rights to points holders. Alongside a group of KOLs sporting Trove badges engaging in concentrated promotions, Trove successfully raised $11.5 million, exceeding the goal by 4.6 times.

Shortly before the ICO deadline, there was less than two hours left, and the prediction market on Polymarket regarding "Trove ICO Total Raise exceeding $20 million" had almost zero probability.

The real drama began. The team suddenly broke the rules, announcing a 5-day extension of the ICO to ensure fair distribution. The "YES" option on Polymarket instantly surged from the bottom to nearly 60%. Insider funds clearly acted swiftly; on-chain data showed that specific wallets placed precise bets before the announcement and swiftly exited after the price surged.

Perhaps thinking that the predicted market liquidity was insufficient to satisfy their appetite, amidst a wave of community skepticism, the Trove team, in a last-ditch effort, staged a "Burning of the States" performance: announcing a retraction of the extension decision and ending the ICO as planned.

Alongside this announcement, the corresponding markets went to zero and settled directly. Polymarket data shows that some wallets placed precise bets before the news was made public and continued to profit from the subsequent reversal.

The Big Retreat

On January 17, Trove suddenly announced the abandonment of Hyperliquid in favor of token issuance on Solana. For a project that had been fundraising under the banner of the Hyperliquid ecosystem, this was nothing short of a betrayal.

Simultaneously, on-chain sleuths captured the Trove team utilizing a timed sell-off function, attempting to dump half of their HYPE tokens within a 40-minute window.

Opting to offload millions worth of tokens in 40 minutes over a weekend with the lowest liquidity, the Trove team was truly desperate.

Faced with scrutiny, the Trove team's explanation seemed feeble: "Investors were nervous and decided to exit." However, on-chain transaction records showed these sell-offs occurring while the team publicly denied "selling tokens."

This blatant contradiction completely shattered the community's trust. As trust crumbled, more skeletons emerged from the closet.

Renowned on-chain sleuth ZachXBT revealed that the Trove team paid a marketing fee of up to $45,000 to @TJRTrades, directly depositing into this KOL's betting website recharge address.

KOL @hrithikk stated that the Trove team not only provided generous marketing fees to KOLs but also privately offered ICO allocations valued as low as $8.5 million, with discounts of up to 60%, along with substantial airdrop rewards. Currently, Trove is still selling shares at a low price and has approached him over 5 times to inquire about investing in Trove.

Trove completed the TGE at 4 a.m. on January 20th Beijing time, with the market cap plummeting from $20 million to $300,000 within two minutes of trading. What's more egregious is that the team did not burn the LP tokens, allowing them to withdraw liquidity from the pool at any time.

The good news is that this farce may not end in a Rug Pull. Trove had previously claimed on its website to comply with the EU's MiCA regulation. Now, faced with false advertising and potential fraud allegations, outraged investors have every reason to initiate civil lawsuits under MiCA provisions.

The bad news is that chat screenshots disclosed by a KOL show that team members appear to be from Iran.

The Hyperliquid ecosystem is known for its strong community cohesion, but the atmosphere of trust has also provided a fertile ground for scammers.

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