TrueFi’s TRU Token Rallies Over 200% After Binance’s TUSD Mint Sparks Speculation
The rally appears to come from traders mistakenly connecting TRU with TUSD, a stablecoin that had been issued by TrueFi in the past but now no longer is.
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TRU, the governance token of decentralized lending protocol TrueFi, surged 220% on Thursday in an hour, data by CoinMarketCap shows, in a speculative flurry over a Binance stablecoin transaction.
Before the rally took off, Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by volume, minted $50 million of TrueUSD (TUSD) stablecoin, according to blockchain data. The event sparked speculation among crypto traders about TUSD potentially gaining a larger role in trading on Binance after the regulatory crackdown on the Paxos-issued Binance USD (BUSD).
However, the speculation about the TRU token appears to be misplaced because the issuers of the TrueUSD and TRU tokens were separated a while ago.
TrustToken sold TUSD in 2020 to a firm called Techteryx, according to an announcement by TrustToken Chief Executive Rafael Cosman at the time. The post said Techteryx is an "Asia-based conglomerate with businesses ... in the traditional real estate, entertainment, environmental and information technology industries."
TrustToken also separated from the TrueFi protocol and was renamed Archblock last year, as TrueFi embarked on a road to decentralize the platform.
"Archblock is in the final stages of transferring all TrueFi IP and assets to the TrueFi Foundation, the TrueFi DAO’s legal entity," a TrueFi spokesperson told CoinDesk, referring to the decentralized autonomous organization.
TRU surged as high as 14.6 cents from 4.4 cents on Binance before later paring some of the gains. The token was trading at around 11 cents at press time.
Earlier this week, Paxos said it would halt minting BUSD on the order of state regulator New York Department of Financial Services. Meanwhile, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued a Wells Notice to Paxos and reportedly was preparing a lawsuit for issuing unregistered securities.
BUSD is the third-largest stablecoin, with a $14 billion market capitalization in rapid decline, and was responsible for 35% of all trading volume on Binance, second to Tether’s USDT, according to data by crypto research firm Kaiko.
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Krisztian Sandor is a reporter on the U.S. markets team focusing on stablecoins and institutional investment. He holds BTC and ETH.