Raiblocks: from 9 cents to $22 in two months

Raiblocks: from 9 cents to $22 and the Bitgrail lockout

In November 2017, Raiblocks was trading at $0.09. On January 15, 2018, it was worth $22.67. In between, a 30x gain in just over a month and a failed exchange with 17 million coins missing. The cryptocurrency that promised instant, fee-free payments did the two things that make a crypto memorable: skyrocket and leave people staring at a dead chart for months.

How much Raiblocks rose in two months

The numbers for those who trinc the project are chilling: from $0.09 in early November 2017 to about $3 in mid-December, and from there to over $22 in mid-January. Anyone who bought on Mercatox at $2.37 saw their position multiply tenfold in a month. With a market cap of just $333 million and only 100 million units in circulation, the arithmetic was simple: any large inflow of money moves the price enormously.

The problem was where to buy it. Mercatox sold it at $3.15 while Bitgrail offered it at $1.93. A 40% difference between two exchanges for the same coin is historically the best sign that something is wrong with one of them.

The technological promise: payments without miners and without fees

The selling point was solid: a DAG network, no miners, no fees, and confirmations in seconds. Practical proof was recorded in cross-wallet transfers: sends of 0.0001 units—a tenth of a cent—arrived in seconds at zero cost, compared to the exorbitant fees Bitcoin charged at the time. The comparison with IOTA, the other big DAG bet at the time, was made bluntly: while one promised, the other paid in three seconds.

Development continued: Epoch and Universal blocks, an iOS test client, integration software for point-of-sale terminals in stores, according to the project's founder.

Bitgrail and the 17 million missing XRB

The party ended at the exchange. From Bitgrail, 17 million XRB disappeared, more than 10% of all coins issued. Those who had funds there and hadn't completed verification lost them. Suspicions of an inside job circulated from day one in the community, though they never led to a conviction. The project's Foundation maintained its support for affected users in bankruptcy proceedings peine in Italy, and the lawsuit filed against its members was withdrawn by the plaintiff as unfounded.

The crash: from $30 to less than one euro

With the rebranding to Nano came the desert crossing. From the $30 and $25 of January purchases, it fell to €1.95, €1.52, €1.38, and €0.95 in a nonstop drop. Some sold there, using the tax excuse of offsetting losses. Others held on from €10 entry points and accepted they had been wrong.

There were bounces: from €0.90 to €2.20 in fifteen days, with no news to explain it. And days of €1.60 and €1.38 again. The chart did what these markets do: nothing predictable.

Why Nano lost interest

The most repeated diagnosis has three legs. The first is Lightning Network: if Bitcoin achieves cheap and fast transactions, Nano's competitive advantage as a means of payment evaporates. The second is liquidity: being on few exchanges and without a direct fiat pair leaves the coin hanging on Bitcoin's mood, which is where the money comes from that later gets distributed among alternatives. The third is cyclical: Nano's rise coincided with the era of extremely high Bitcoin fees, and when that circumstance disappears, so does the reason to use it.

Add to that the obvious: those who bought at a cent or received it for free still have incentives to sell. Selling pressure is structural.

With these ingredients, mass migration to Nano should have started yesterday. It still hasn't arrived. And opinions, three years after that 30x, haven't moved an inch from where they were.