Breaking news! $EDGE Airdrop reveals $94 million in pump-and-dump schemes. How do "compliant" projects backed by VCs achieve textbook-level harvesting?

At the end of March, when the $EDGE airdrop lookup page went live, many long-waiting users may not have expected that the on-chain data released afterward would lead the project team to shut off comments on social media.

Data from on-chain analytics platforms paints a glaring picture: this perpetual contract decentralized exchange, incubated by Amber Group and backed by investment from Circle Ventures, promised to distribute 25% of its tokens to the community, yet the share that actually went to ordinary traders may be less than 4%. In contrast, as much as 14% of the token supply—worth about $94.6 million—was allocated to addresses labeled as “partners.”

Previously, the estimated value of $EDGE points in the secondary market ranged from $30 to $40. Based on the token’s current price of about $0.7, point holders’ paper losses are more than 80%. What’s even more suffocating is that when they rushed to the official account seeking an explanation, the comment section had already been closed.

The core issue lies in the opacity of the points redemption rate. After the token generation event, users opened the claiming page and found that the same number of points corresponded to vastly different redemption rates. Some people could redeem 11 $EDGE tokens per point, while others could redeem only 0.5 tokens per point—a difference of as much as 22x.

A user posted on a social platform that their 940 points only bought 300 tokens, which is worth about $210 based on the market price. An early project ambassador also complained in the community that each point could be redeemed for only 4 tokens. To date, the project team has not publicly explained the logic behind this weighting algorithm—every answer is locked on the servers.

On-chain monitoring captured even more direct evidence. Before the token generation event, at least 80 related addresses began making intense on-chain transfers, totaling tokens worth $90 million. The creation times of these addresses clustered in 2025, and the behavior pattern was highly consistent: first conduct small test transactions, then park large amounts of funds, and swiftly transfer them once the token went live.

If these addresses belong to internal stakeholders, it’s hard to explain this with technical mistakes. The data shows that some tokens have already flowed into major exchanges.

To respond to the pressure from public opinion, the project team, in the early hours of April 1, announced that the controversial 14% of tokens would be locked for one year. However, this “remedial measure” only raised more questions: If the allocation was reasonable, why was it necessary to lock it? If insiders are clean, why don’t they dare to publicly disclose the ownership of those 80 addresses?

This incident also prompted deeper thinking about the backing of venture capital. Circle Ventures’ investment had put a “compliance” label on the project, and Amber Group’s incubation background also made it stand out from ordinary projects. But now it seems those halos may have served as a carefully packaged façade—using institutional credibility to earn retail trust, and then using complex on-chain architecture to conceal the power behind centralized token distribution.

In the afternoon of April 1, the project team announced that it would begin repurchasing tokens to reassure the market, buying back about 927,000 tokens totaling $690,000. But some users publicly questioned that if they were truly sincere, the repurchased tokens should be sent to a burn address. The team did not respond.

An interesting contrast is that on the afternoon of March 31, on the prediction market Polymarket, large amounts of money were betting that the $EDGE valuation would be completely diluted the next day by more than $300 million, $400 million, or even $500 million. However, the actual valuation trend after the token went live exceeded most people’s expectations, ultimately surpassing $600 million. The prediction market’s total trading volume reached $15.21 million.

Currently, $EDGE is quoted at about $0.71. In the comment section of its official social media account, it is still in a closed state.

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