LAB token crashes 85% as manipulation warnings finally play out

LAB has lost about 85% of its value in 24 hours, falling to just under $2 from around $14 following months of public warnings that its price was inflated and its supply was controlled by insiders.

Traders holding leveraged long positions suffered heavy losses from forced liquidations, and a major token unlock scheduled for July 14 could add more selling pressure.

LAB crashes by 85%

Blockchain investigator ZachXBT posted on July 8 that the LAB token had fallen 85% to just under $2 from $14 ($14B FDV) in the past 24 hours. The crash happened so fast that it forced the automatic closure of leveraged trades, especially on Binance’s perpetual futures market.

The token was reportedly still trading near $15 on Binance’s spot market as recently as July 5, but it later dropped to about $4.30 on the USDT perpetual market.

CoinMarketCap data put the token at $2.18 the same day, down 84% over 24 hours, with a 24-hour low of $1.82 against a high of $13.93. The token now ranks #209 by market value, at roughly $682 million, down from a fully diluted valuation that ZachXBT had earlier pegged near $14 billion.

For context, LAB set an all-time high of $27.22 on June 2.

Did analysts know ahead of time that LAB would crash?

ZachXBT alleged in May 2026 that insiders controlled more than 95% of LAB’s token supply and had inflated the price through coordinated market-making on centralized exchanges.

Cryptopolitan reported that his investigation described hidden private loans from the project’s BVI-registered entity and discount deals offered to key opinion leaders (KOLs) in exchange for promotional posts.

The analytics firm BubbleMaps also issued a warning, telling holders the situation would get “ugly.” At the time, presale participants were sitting on more than $1 billion in unrealized gains they could not touch, because full allocations will remain locked until 2027.

By early July, BubbleMaps reported those paper profits had shrunk to around half a billion dollars, and after the token unlock scheduled for July 14, selling pressure could further shrink the gains.

The venture firm Moonrock Capital called LAB a “ridiculously blatant scam” and questioned why major exchanges kept listing it.

ZachXBT went further, arguing that if exchanges “cared,” profits from the accounts manipulating the price would be handed back to users. He has previously called on Binance, Bitget, and Gate.io to freeze insider profits or delist the token outright.

None of the three has publicly acted on that demand.

ZachXBT has tied LAB’s market-making setup to a string of other tokens he has flagged, including RAVE, RIVER, SIREN, MYX, and SKYAI, which he attributes to a single unknown market maker operating through Chinese exchanges.

RAVE, one of those names, collapsed more than 95% after rallying toward $28, wiping out a $6 billion market cap on just $52 million in liquidations.

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