Amid rising social activity and interest from investors, two tokens linked to the new crypto exchange OPNX, Flex Coin (FLEX) and Open Exchange Token (OX), surged as much as 35% in the past 24 hours. According to CoinGecko data, a buy order of just $66,000 worth of ether (ETH) on Uniswap – where $3 million worth of OX were traded in the past 24 hours – was enough to move OX prices by 2%. Trading volumes for OX on OPNX were even lower, with only $69,000 in the past 24 hours, and FLEX saw an even meager $500,000 in cumulative trading volumes across centralized and decentralized exchanges.
Blockchain data for OX tokens show the number of unique wallets holding the tokens stands at just 1,700 as of Tuesday, despite the tokens having surged to a market capitalization of above $105 million. Comparatively, projects with a similar capitalization have a significantly higher number of holders. For example, Metis blockchain boasts 17,000 holders of its METIS tokens, while crypto bridge Synapse has 7,612 holders of SYN tokens.
The surge in OPNX tokens is likely linked to the exchange’s founders, Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, who were previously founders of the defunct crypto fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC). The failed crypto fund imploded with an estimated $2.5 billion of clients’ money last June. The duo has since teamed with the co-founders of crypto exchange CoinFlex on the creation of OPNX, touting it as the world’s first public marketplace for crypto claims trading and derivatives. However, OPNX has since been off to a rocky start, marred with poor volumes and a general lack of trust from market participants given the history of their operators.