🚨 THE FIRST MAJOR SCAM OF 2026: Only a few weeks into 2026, TROVE has already become one of the clearest scam cases of the year. Trove positioned itself as the first perpetual DEX for collectibles: Pokémon cards, CS skins, luxury watches, all traded with leverage. The concept sounded fresh. The project claimed to be built on Hyperliquid and backed this narrative with an aggressive influencer campaign, reportedly paying thousands per month for promotion. THE ICO: The public sale took place between January 8 and 11. The initial target was $2.5M at a $20M FDV. Instead, Trove raised $11.5M, more than four times the cap. Several large wallets participated, with the top contribution reaching $132,000. Demand looked strong, but this is where the first serious issues appeared. CONTRACT MANIPULATION: Minutes before the ICO was supposed to close, the team quietly updated the smart contract and extended the sale to January 20. Traders noticed the change and positioned accordingly, including heavy activity on Polymarket. Fourteen minutes later, the team reversed the decision and announced that the ICO was closed after all. One Polymarket trader lost $73,000 on a position. During that same short window, unusually large buy orders went through. The timing raised immediate suspicions inside the community. THE RED FLAGS: In hindsight, the warning signs were obvious: > Anonymous team with no public founders > Product only running on testnet > No clear tokenomics or vesting schedule > 100% token unlock at TGE > Heavy undisclosed paid influencer promotion CHAIN SWITCH: On January 17, just one week after raising funds for a Hyperliquid-based product, Trove announced a sudden switch to Solana. The justification was that a liquidity partner withdrew 500,000 HYPE tokens they supposedly needed. This explanation did not align with the fact that Trove had raised roughly $20M earlier specifically to acquire HYPE for staking and liquidity purposes. TOKEN DUMP: Within 24 hours of the announcement, wallets linked to Trove sold approximately 194,000 HYPE tokens, worth around $10M. The founder publicly denied controlling those wallets and requested that they be frozen. Minutes later, selling resumed. ZachXBT also identified funds from the angel round being bridged directly to a casino deposit address. TGE AND COLLAPSE: THE took place between January 19 and 20. The token dumped over 95% from its launch price. Liquidity was removed by the team. Oversubscribed participants received no refunds. The FDV collapsed from $20M to roughly $660K. AFTERMATH: The Hyperliquid Foundation donated 10,000 HYPE to ZachXBT to support a formal investigation. The community is demanding refunds, while Trove claims it is still “building on Solana” with a new mainnet target. This case is a reminder that hype does not replace fundamentals. The project shown a lot of red flags from begining, but people were too blind to see. I personally skipped this sale and am very glad that I did. In crypto, DYOR is not optional. It is MANDATORY. Remember that.(Hanzo ㊗️)