DeFi token CRV spikes after reports PayPal acquired unrelated custody firm Curv

Excitable speculators mistakenly rushed to invest in the native token of decentralized finance protocol Curve Finance (CRV) after reports emerged that payments giant PayPal has acquired the unrelated Israel-based crypto custody firm, Curv.

News of PayPal’s Curv acquisition was reported on March 2, with the publications citing anonymous sources “familiar with the matter.” Israel-based media has reported the company may have been sold for between $200 million and $300 million.

Within an hour of the news breaking, Curve’s CRV token had rallied by more than 10% as opportunistic traders raced each other to enter the markets — pushing prices up from roughly $2.30 to $2.60.

The official Twitter account of Curve has also been mistakenly tagged in numerous posts celebrating PayPal’s acquisition, to which Curve has responded in a bid to dispel the confusion:

The correct account for that is @curvmpc, not us

— Curve Finance (@CurveFinance) March 2, 2021

CRV quickly reversed the rally to give back all of its gains as traders realized their mistake. The resulting red candlestick was CRV’s largest hourly candlestick by trade volume since Jan. 21.

However, all publicity is good publicity and despite the confusion, CRV has since bounced off support at $2.20, and last changed hands for $2.60 to post a gain of 29% over the past 24 hours. As such, CRV currently ranks as today’s best-performing Ethereum-based asset, according to market data aggregator Messari.

This is not the first time fools have rushed in to buy the wrong ticker. In January, confused traders rallied around the New York Stock Exchange-listed Tanzanian Gold Corporation (TRX) after Justin Sun’s Tron cryptocurrency (also TRX) was promoted to traders in the notorious r/WallStreetBets group.

Justin Sun was shilling his shite token TRX to the WSB subreddit but they bought the Tanzanian Gold Corp (which is the TRX stock) instead pic.twitter.com/Q5CW4znqai

— ∞ CO฿IE (@CryptoCobain) January 30, 2021

The debacle saw daily trade in Tanzanian Gold Corporation’s stock increase by nearly 84 times on Jan. 29, spiking from an average daily volume of 584,000 shares to 49 million. The day saw TRX stock prices rally from $0.85 to more than $1.90, before collapsing to close the day at a roughly 15% loss.