On December 19, Grimace put on a live event, turning it into a New Year’s celebration by handing out millions to his fans. This whole spectacle was on MEXC’s dime, as they listed the token on their futures platform without asking the community first.
The Backstory: What Led to the Showdown
Back in spring 2023, a new crypto project called Grimace burst onto the scene. It quickly became a hit, making its early supporters a lot of money, who then put some of that into charities. There was money being handed out everywhere, and they even hosted big-money competitions in games like poker, chess, Dota 2, Counter-Strike, and even rap battles.
Grimace showed up on MEXC for the first time on June 12, 2023. People initially liked the exchange for its low fees. But things took a turn in October when MEXC added Grimace to its futures market without everyone’s okay. This move wasn’t what the Grimace team had in mind, and it felt like the exchange was meddling too much.
When talking it out didn’t work, Odysseus, a leader in the Grimace community, told everyone to pull their tokens from MEXC and move them to BitGet. This move left MEXC’s trading list almost empty, with their share of tokens diving from 40% to just 1.5%.
The exchange didn’t say anything back, so Odysseus returned with a plan. He told everyone to set up certain kinds of trades on Grimace futures, expecting the price to go from $45-46 down to below $40. He then made those trades happen and pushed the price all the way up to $90. This big move didn’t cost much since there wasn’t much going on in the regular buying and selling market.
MEXC’s bot, which usually makes money from small price changes, lost everything in this stunt, with the Grimace community picking up the tab.
This round cost the exchange a few hundred thousand dollars. After this, MEXC’s higher-ups got straight on the phone to Grimace’s creators. But they didn’t take Grimace off the futures market, which led to more aggressive moves and finally a big hit later on.
December 19th – A Major Win for the Grimace Community
That night, Odysseus told everyone about a live stream happening on the INV TRADING channel.
He was planning to make a bigger New Year’s miracle this time, aiming to make his viewers a lot richer, all thanks to the exchange.
He set up trades between $35-45 and then boosted the price massively to $358 per token. This move made a ton of money for his viewers, especially those who used extra leverage.
At the same time, the regular market price shot up to $852. MEXC’s bot couldn’t handle this big jump because it didn’t have enough cash, so Odysseus’s viewers and INV TRADING took the opportunity.
Eventually, even the platform couldn’t show the correct PNL percentages due to the extreme rise.
Just an hour after all this, a notice came out about taking Grimace off the list. Usually, these notices are given way ahead of time, but this time, users had less than two days to sort their stuff out.
This marked a definite win for Grimace. This marked a definite win for Grimace. We’re keeping our eyes on what’s happening next with this super-active crypto community: https://twitter.com/GrimaceOdysseus.
