Franklin, the seventh largest BAYC holder, is being accused by NFT Twitter of manipulating the Bored Ape NFT floor price. Here are some reasons behind the accusations.
Franklin has allegedly manipulated the Bored Ape NFT floor price. How did he pull it off?
Franklin and the Bored Ape NFT floor price
According to @sgsand1, Franklin listed his apes close to the floor price. Four of these sold. However, this caused people to panic and undercut him, driving the floor price down. The downward pressure on the Bored Ape NFT floor price triggered a significant amount of BenDAO liquidations. It is safe to say that this led to even more panic among the BAYC community. To explain the situation, users took to Twitter.
“Franklyn then goes to @BendDAO and takes loans against 14 of his apes. Uses that plus the eth from his 4 sales to be the first bid on every BendDao auction, which gives him 26 free eth from the “first bid bonus” on Benddao,” adds @sgsand1. @sgsand1 later added a correction – saying that the first bid bonus only happens if people pay off the loan. Therefore, there is no guarantee of the 26 ETH.
Therefore, Franklin could either win the auctions, buy off the market at a cheap price, or repurchase the four apes at a price cheaper than his initial selling price. Franklin responded to @sgsand1, saying: “Since the past week or so, bought 23 apes, sold 25, traded 2, for a -51.68 ETH cost basis so if I were to buy 2 more apes to get back to 61 at 55 ETH, that would be a 58.32 ETH cost basis for keeping the same number of apes (so 58.32 ETH loss).”
BAYC and the current market conditions
Franklin’s is a well-known member of the BAYC community. However, Franklin’s impact on the Bored Ape NFT floor price and the massive hysteria it caused is also linked to the current market conditions. The FTX scandal, which started on November 7, has impacted blue-chip NFTs such as BAYC. There has been a significant drop in sales volume, floor prices, NFTs traded, number of traders, and market capitalisation. Therefore, Franklin’s alleged actions did little to ease the worries of the NFT community.
