Waves (WAVES) Founder Asks Exchanges to Disable Futures Trading, Claiming They’re a “Breeding Ground for FUD”

Waves (WAVES) founder Sasha Ivanov took to Twitter to claim “No one needs futures markets.”
The request comes after a 40% price decline for the Waves token, with the Waves stablecoin losing 50% of its value in a similar timeframe.

Sasha Ivanov, the founder of the Waves ecosystem, has requested that centralized exchanges remove the Waves (WAVES) token from their futures trading platforms, claiming that the token does not need futures markets.

#Waves does not need $waves futures markets. They are a breeding ground for FUD and making money off short positions, profitable because of it.

I kindly ask all #cex's to disable Waves futures markets.@binance @kucoincom @krakenfx @HuobiGlobal @okx @Bybit_Official
— Sasha.waves (@sasha35625) December 21, 2022

The Waves founder claims futures markets are a “breeding ground for FUD.” Source: Twitter

The tweet comes after a significant price drop of almost 40% in the past 14 days for the Waves (WAVES) native token. A recent report by the South Korean Digital Asset Collective (DAXA) flagged the WAVES token as “fundamentally unstable,” causing some centralized exchanges (CEXs) to halt deposits.

The WAVES token has declined considerably over the past 14 days. Source: Coingecko

In a recent statement, Waves Labs claims that the action taken by CEXs “signaled to the market that the WAVES token was risky,” when actually nothing had changed.

The Waves Labs statement claims that halted deposits along with FUD surrounding the token created an optimum shorting environment.

The statement proceeds to blame “opportunistic traders” for the aggressive shorting of the WAVES token, prompting a number of tweets from Sasha Ivanov.

NO ONE needs futures markets.
— Sasha.waves (@sasha35625) December 21, 2022

Sasha Ivanov responds to criticism of their original tweet. Source: Twitter

The New Stablecoin from Waves Labs, after the Last One Depegged

The community has responded with criticism, joking that exchanges should in fact disable selling altogether, and that Ethereum should be taken off all futures markets in mimicry of Sasha Ivanov’s tweets.

The Waves Ecosystem previously released an algorithmic strablecoin called the Neutrino Dollar (USDN), which allegedly was not prepared for black swan events. USDN has depegged previously and is now trading at $0.503 as of the press release.

USDN lost its peg to the dollar again following the DAXA statement, and has shown no signs of recovery. Sasha Ivanov has announced plans to release a new stablecoin that is “undepeggable” following the turbulent price action seen across the Waves Ecosystem.

Although seemingly pivoting to a new project, Sasha Ivanov does say that there will be restitution for holders of USDN before there is progression with the new stablecoin.

On the Flipside

A series of unfortunate events is seemingly to blame for the suffering in the Waves Ecosystem, and although DAXA is allegedly at fault, it’s unlikely that CEXs will oblige and disable futures trading. The community views public founder requests like this as troublesome.