What's Driving Token Prices? October 12, 2022

APE (-12%) - In a still unfolding story, Yuga Labs, the creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club and owner of the IP for Cryptopunks and Meebits, is being investigated by the SEC. According to reports, Yuga Labs is facing a probe over whether its digital assets are securities and should be treated like stocks and whether Apecoin, the token for its Otherside Metaverse, should be considered a security. The token traded down almost 12% on the news.
BNB (-8.8%) - Binance Smart Chain, the Layer 1 protocol created by exchange Binance, suffered a $600M exploit last Thursday. Unsurprisingly, Binance's bridge, the BSC Token hub, was attacked. During this time, the attacker minted 2 million new BNB tokens (worth ~$570M at the time), deposited the BNB as collateral on Venus (lend/borrow protocol), and withdrew stablecoins which were then sent to other chains, including Ethereum and Fantom. Thankfully, BSC validators paused the network, which stopped further withdrawals and allowed recovery of a large majority of the assets. The attacker got away with about $100M in assets.
MKR (+17%) - Decentralized stablecoin issuer MakerDAO last week invested $500M of its balance sheet into U.S. treasuries and corporate bonds. Maker converted $500M worth of DAI to make the purchase to diversify their balance sheet and revenue lines while spreading the usage of DAI in traditional financial markets.
HT (+30%) - Huobi exchange founder Leon Li sold his entire stake in the exchange to About Capital. According to reports, the investment fund is majority funded by Justin Sun, founder of Layer 1 protocol Tron. Although Sun has refuted allegations that he is not the owner of the new stake in Huobi, he has been appointed to Huobi’s Global Advisory Board. For context, Huobi commands 2% of the overall centralized exchange market and did $64B in volumes in the last month. Huobi token soared on the news, up almost 30% on the week, while Tron has barely reacted, down 1.2% for the week.

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