Trove Crashes 95% After $9.4M Captured in Solana Pivot
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Hassan Shitu
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Trove Markets DEX to Solana just days before the token's launch has come under heavy scrutiny after initially confirming that it would take in about $9.4 million from a token sale surrounding a planned merger with Hyperliquid.
This has caused the newly launched TROVE token to crash more than 95% minutes after it started trading.
TROVE launched with an expected market capitalization of around $20 million, but within ten minutes of going live, the token dropped to $0.0008, falling below $2 million, according to DEXScreener data.
At the time of writing, TROVE is trading at around $0.000703, with a market cap of about $703,000.
The sudden drop follows frustration from contributors who say the project was diverted late in the fundraising process.
Liquid extraction triggered the conversion of trove from hyperliquid to solana
Trove has raised over $11.5 million in a public token sale aimed at building a perpetual decentralized exchange using HyperLiquid infrastructure.
A few days before the Token Generation event, however, the team announced that they would be turning to Solana instead.
That shift has raised questions about whether the money raised to build HyperLiquid should be returned.
Instead, Trove said it will retain $9,397,403 to continue development on Solana, a move it says is the only viable way to keep the product alive.
One of Trove's builders, known as Unwise, previously backed HyperLiquid Road with 500,000 HYPE tokens due to the sudden release of a key liquidity partner.
With that support gone, the team decided it didn't make sense to continue building on the HyperLiquid rails and opted to build the perps exchange on Solana from scratch.
Trove said the decision essentially changed the parameters and forced a reset instead of pushing forward with an uncertain setup.
Trove admitted to X that the handling of the ICO and subsequent decisions had created confusion, frustration and a breakdown in confidence.
Trove said it has refunded about $2.44 million as part of clearing participation and maintaining the integrity of distribution, with an additional $100,000 planned to be automatically refunded to ICO participants.
The remaining funds were spent or allocated to developer salaries, front-end and back-end infrastructure, chief technology officer, consulting services, marketing and operational costs, he said.
Despite these explanations, critics continue to question the handling of the wage increase.
On X, some users accused the project of violating fundraising expectations, claiming that the money raised to build HyperLiquid should not be used again after a last-minute pivot.
Others go further, demanding a refund, threatening legal action, or stating that the situation could lead to a lawsuit.
Adding to the controversy with data shared by Bubblemap, further on-chain analysis revealed that one entity appeared to control 12% of TROVE's supply, with dozens of hot wallets distributed on the same exchange and collected in short time windows.
Bubblemap found no evidence directly linking those wallets to the Trove group, but said the pattern raised open questions about presale behavior.
The turmoil follows a chaotic ICO process earlier in January.
Trove said its initial sales exceeded $2.5 million, up from $11.5 million, and promised pro-rata refunds. He then briefly announced a five-day extension only to reverse the decision hours later, citing an error.
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