As RIVER continues to post new all-time highs, on-chain activity is revealing an unusual underlying market structure—one that challenges the idea that this rally is being driven by organic demand.
RIVER launched as a DeFi project centered on stablecoin infrastructure, aiming to enable cross-chain liquidity. Its main product allows users to mint a stablecoin backed by assets like BTC, ETH, or BNB, while promoting a 0% interest model. While functional, this concept is not particularly novel, nor obviously strong enough to justify the token’s explosive repricing.
Despite that, RIVER surged more than 40x in under two months, climbing from roughly $2 to over $80.
What makes the move especially suspicious is how derivatives traders were positioned. Across futures markets, the majority of participants were consistently short RIVER. Instead of collapsing, price moved higher—forcing shorts to cover. Each forced buy pushed the price up further, triggering more liquidations in a self-reinforcing cycle. Over time, hundreds of millions of dollars in short positions were erased.
In this environment, price appreciation no longer depended on genuine spot buying. It was mechanically driven by short squeezes.
That raises the key question: who initiated and sustained this reflexive loop?
Evidence of Coordinated On-Chain Activity
A deeper review of on-chain transactions points to a single coordinated entity linked—directly or indirectly—to over 2,400 wallets. What stands out isn’t just the number of addresses, but their synchronized behavior and shared objective.
Funds originate from a wallet initially funded by OKX, then move through layers of intermediary wallets before converging on addresses that withdraw RIVER from Bitget. When timelines are aligned, these withdrawals closely precede the token’s vertical price movement.
Aggregated data suggests this wallet cluster controlled close to half of RIVER’s circulating supply. In such a setup, price no longer reflects free market dynamics. By limiting available supply while exploiting derivatives-driven pressure, price can be pushed higher without significant new capital entering the market.
Rather than using a few large wallets, the structure was deliberately fragmented to resemble thousands of independent users—masking coordinated accumulation.
Phase 1: Initial Funding via OKX
The entire network traces back to a single wallet funded with just 8 BNB from OKX. The amount was small enough to avoid attention, but it served as the origin point.
Importantly, this wallet never interacted with RIVER itself. Its role was purely to distribute capital. Separating funding from accumulation is a common obfuscation tactic, making attribution far more difficult.
Phase 2: Capital Fragmentation Using Multicall3
Funds were then routed through the Multicall3 contract, typically used to batch transactions. Here, it functioned as a fragmentation mechanism.
Using Multicall3, capital was distributed almost simultaneously to 362 wallets. Instead of one suspicious transaction, blockchain explorers show hundreds of small, seemingly unrelated transfers—technically legitimate, but strategically designed.
Phase 3: Expanding the Wallet Network
Each of those 362 wallets forwarded funds through nine additional intermediary addresses, expanding the total network to 2,418 wallets.
While on-chain data is fully transparent, each additional transfer increases the difficulty of analysis. The goal isn’t to hide transactions, but to dilute clarity enough that ownership attribution becomes complex.
Phase 4: Withdrawing RIVER From Bitget
Only after passing through multiple layers did funds reach their final purpose: withdrawing RIVER from Bitget.
Two major withdrawal waves stand out. On December 5, around 2 million RIVER were withdrawn across five wallets. On December 29, another 1 million RIVER were withdrawn through two wallets, with roughly 80% still held at the time of analysis.
In total, about 3 million RIVER were accumulated at an average price near $4.12, implying an estimated cost of roughly $22 million.
Most of these wallets trace back to the same funding source, strongly suggesting coordinated accumulation rather than independent investor behavior.
Phase 5: Supply Control and Price Expansion
Once a large portion of RIVER was removed from exchanges, circulating supply tightened dramatically. Estimates indicate that nearly 50% of the circulating supply was under the control of this wallet cluster when the price went parabolic.
Under these conditions, price formation changes. With limited sell pressure and leveraged shorts piling in, the entity only needed to hold supply. Each liquidation pushed price higher, fueling the next wave—completely disconnected from product updates or organic adoption.
This period marked RIVER’s most aggressive price acceleration.
Legal Context and Market Implications
In traditional financial markets, this behavior would clearly qualify as market manipulation. Concentrated ownership combined with liquidity control would be prohibited.
Crypto operates differently.
All activity occurred transparently on-chain. No records were altered, and no explicit laws currently classify this strategy as illegal. The data is public—but the regulatory framework remains unclear.
The result is distorted price discovery. Instead of reflecting fundamentals like technology or adoption, RIVER’s price appears to be driven primarily by supply dominance and liquidation mechanics.
RIVER’s price continues to rise, and there is no definitive proof linking these actions to a specific individual or organization. This analysis is not an accusation—it is an interpretation of observable transaction patterns.
The real risk isn’t how high the price can go, but what happens if this structure unravels.
For participants, the essential question is whether they are investing in long-term value—or trading within a market governed mainly by controlled supply dynamics. Understanding that distinction defines the true risk being taken.
This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
