Wintermute, the algorithmic trading firm and liquidity provider, is now among the top owners of Neiro. Recently, the fund continued to buy up Neiro on Ethereum, taking a side in the battle with First Neiro on Ethereum (community takeover).
Wintermute is still the most prominent market maker for Neiro on Ethereum. Instead of just being a market maker, the fund is actually accumulating Neiro on Ethereum, the asset behind Binance’s perpetual futures market.
Wintermute expanded its NEIRO holdings to 63.46M, though within minutes the holdings expanded to above 65.41M. The last 46M tokens were added since September 10. Wintermute is even now engaged in high-frequency trading through a dedicated wallet containing more than 37M NEIRO. The wallet is turning into a key net buyer, absorbing inflows from a group of smaller wallets.
Wintermute is serving as a high-frequency buyer with connections to Bybit and Gate.IO. | Source: Bubblemaps
The accumulation of this version of NEIRO started at the beginning of August, when Wintermute became one of the top holders with 15M NEIRO. The market maker’s dedication followed NEIRO on Ethereum through its highs and lows. Wintermute has been accumulating the asset even near peak prices of $0.26.
In the past week, Wintermute has been literally ‘buying the dip’ from $0.20 to the current price of NEIRO at $0.078. The asset corrected and moved to a lower range after Binance ended up listing a different token, claiming to be community-controlled.
The NEIRO token received warnings of being community-controlled. However, most of the price action hinges on market markers using Bitget and Gate.IO for high-frequency trading. Currently, Wintermute seems to be absorbing all selling, while playing a game of nerves against short-sellers that aim to crash NEIRO. The fact that NEIRO was left without a Binance spot market caused expectations the token would move into an even lower range. For now, Wintermute has defended the $0.07 position.
The two Neiro versions go into a community battle
Despite the claims that Neiro on Ethereum is a ‘cabal coin’, while First Neiro on Ethereum is community-owned, both assets have supporters and communities on social media. Both are also hoping for a price recovery and sufficient liquidity, with no signs of either coin diminishing.
First Neiro on Ethereum expanded from its lows immediately after the Binance listing. Currently, the asset is trading at $0.0008, after a start at $0.000003. More than 72% of all activity on this NEIRO version is on Binance, with a market depth of $396K.
The paradox is that Neiro on Ethereum now has 21,446 holders. The community-controlled token now has a smaller collection of 13,331 holders as of September 18. The ‘people’s NEIRO’ version is also accruing listings and use cases in Web3 projects. However, it has to compete with having Wintermute as the ultimate bag-holder, buying up 6.5% of the supply into several addresses.
Binance explains its decision to give exposure to two NEIRO
After setting up two types of markets, Binance’s co-founder Yi He posted a long explanation of the exchange’s rationale for listing. Binance has tightened its rules on new token additions, especially stringent on having insider holdings or a low float.
First Neiro on Ethereum covers most of the points for a listing, including wide distribution. However, the original Neiro on Ethereum, which only received a derivative market, also changed its distribution over the past days. Meme tokens are always at risk of sniping and forming wallet clusters. For Binance, the newly listed NEIRO, Turbo and Baby Doge Coin fulfilled the condition of a fully diluted coin with a wide distribution.
Paradoxically, the community-held token now accrues a series of centralized listings, while more than 40% of the token’s supply already entered Binance’s hot wallets. The asset ended up with highly centralized ownership and hinging on a single trading pair.
At the same time, Neiro on Ethereum battles it out on Uniswap, with attempts to sell, short and crash the price. The token’s distribution still has inflows to Gate.IO and other exchanges, but a relatively small presence of whales. In the end, the asset will continue to struggle for influence and may benefit from the exposure and conflict. So far, Binance has not announced plans to remedy its mistake and list Neiro on Ethereum.
Cryptopolitan reporting by Hristina Vasileva
