Earlier this month, LikeCoin v3 was officially launched alongside the community meeting held on the first Monday evening, opening up upgrades for users. While the new features and upgrade guides have already been written about, this time I want to share a side story: how I made a rookie mistake, acting as a “human ATM,” and causing the LikeCoin price to halve right after the upgrade before it eventually recovered.
The Liquidity Trap at the Initial Launch
Readers who participated in the LikeCoin v3 launch party earlier this month might recall that the event started at 18:30 (HKT). During the event, Rick, William, and I demonstrated token upgrades, depositing, voting, and staking, wrapping up around 19:45 after answering community questions. After the party, several volunteers and I stayed online to chat about task distribution and other arrangements. Approaching 21:00, with everything wrapped up, I felt a bit hungry and had a sudden urge to treat myself, so I put down my keyboard and went to the village to eat cart noodles.
I hadn’t even enjoyed half my meal when I checked my phone and was shocked to see the LikeCoin price had dropped by half. While wolfing down the noodles in a few bites, I looked into the situation. It turned out that in the week leading up to the v3 launch, the price of the neglected v2 token had dropped to just $0.0006 USD. This was a full 70% lower than the recent average price, which was also the initial listing price for v3 ($0.002 USD). Just as I was enjoying my noodles, a sharp user, Bob, noticed this discrepancy, immediately bought large amounts of v2 LikeCoin on Osmosis, upgraded them to v3, and sold them on Uniswap for arbitrage.
Since v3 had just gone live, practically no one held the new LikeCoin yet. The only liquidity available was the approximately $20,000 USD worth of LIKE/USDC I had injected in preparation for the upgrade. Consequently, as Bob dumped his LikeCoin, the price responded by crashing 50%, being pulled down to $0.001 USD. This aligned it with the v2 LikeCoin price, which had risen due to his heavy buying, thus closing the arbitrage gap.
Rushing back home, I took advantage of the LikeCoin “fire sale” and swept up stock in both v2 and v3 markets, causing the price to gradually return close to its original level. At the same time, after the first batch of users upgraded, some chose to add liquidity to the pool to earn transaction fees. This increased LikeCoin v3 liquidity beyond the level where someone with my modest financial power could significantly sway it. The price then stabilized, hovering around $0.002 USD ever since, bringing the incident to a close.
Coincidence and Carelessness Create an Upgrade Blind Spot
Never mind blockchain knowledge; anyone with a bit of financial literacy or even slight business sense can see this was a simple arbitrage case. It was neither bizarre nor complicated. The reason I ignored it was a consequence of coincidence combined with carelessness.
LikeCoin v3 was proposed early last year, development was largely completed a month ago, and minting took place during the September 1st community meeting under the witness of users. By October, as the official launch approached, we submitted updates to the two major information platforms, CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap. CoinGecko reacted quickly, updating the LikeCoin v3 data within a few days and renaming the original LikeCoin v2 to “likecoin-old,” stopping updates on its value.
I usually consult CoinGecko and rarely use CoinMarketCap. With the v2 price frozen on the former and the v3 countdown under a month away, my mind had already “upgraded” prematurely. I was fully focused on the technical details of a smooth user upgrade, striving to ensure features like staking and deposits worked immediately, while thinking about how to transition governance and legitimacy seamlessly. As for the original LikeCoin chain, aside from ensuring normal operations and reminding users to withdraw liquidity from v2, I had thrown the v2 token price to the back of my mind. I even paused my routine—started at the beginning of the year—of buying $100 worth of LikeCoin daily, thinking it would be more meaningful to resume after the v3 launch. Meanwhile, some validators continued selling their LikeCoin rewards to cover server costs as usual. This caused the v2 price to fall continuously in the two weeks prior to the upgrade, widening the gap with the v3 initial price and creating an arbitrage space as high as 70%.
Although the incident was largely resolved that night with LikeCoin v3 returning to around $0.002 USD (the recent average), Bob still holds a batch of LikeCoin bought at low prices. Recently, I restarted my daily $100 buy-in, and Bob seems to have coordinated with me, effectively “selling $100 worth of LikeCoin daily.” The objective result has become a zero-sum game where I use US dollars to buy LikeCoin from him every day.
Dropping the Game, Pursuing a Win-Win
The “chain” is watching what people are doing. Blockchain is open and transparent, lacking privacy protection. By carefully tracking on-chain transactions to understand the sequence of events, I naturally learned Bob’s identity without even trying to doxx him. He is a long-time user of LikeCoin and Matters. The Bob I know understood LikeCoin very well from the early days, wrote some valuable articles, and even built peripheral services for LikeCoin. It is only natural that Bob, knowing LikeCoin like the back of his hand, could easily spot this loophole.
Although I lost quite a bit because of this, arbitrage is a normal market operation. Bob’s actions were merely self-interested and beyond reproach. As the token issuer and minter, I put all my mind into functionality, technology, and governance, yet forgot the most fundamental market logic of the token. I paid the tuition fees; I have no one to blame but my own stupidity.
However, I can’t help but feel that for Bob—someone who has followed and deeply understood LikeCoin and blockchain from the beginning until today—if he only focuses his gaze and time on arbitrage while forgetting the spirit of LikeCoin and his own original intentions, it is a misuse of great talent and truly a pity.
Bob, if you are reading this, I have some words for you.
I buy $100 worth of LikeCoin every day, and absorbed your heavy selling during this incident, gradually converting my Bitcoin and Ethereum into LikeCoin. I do this not because I am noble or willing to sacrifice greatly for the community, but because I am simultaneously bullish on LikeCoin’s future. I deeply believe price will eventually reflect value. Even if I take your supply at several times your cost price today, it remains a wise investment.
While continuing to sell LikeCoin daily allows you to make some small money, compared to playing this zero-sum game with me, I suggest you refocus on the essence of LikeCoin and blockchain. Try the LikeCoin v3 staking, deposit your remaining LikeCoin to earn rewards, gain voting power, participate in governance, and work with the whole community to realize LikeCoin’s vision.
Bob, I know you once held ideals too. Remember when we first discussed this? Blockchain was extremely immature then. But today, whether in speed, cost, or regulation, we have taken a huge step forward, approaching the demands of mass adoption. The time to realize our past ideals is drawing closer. Please reclaim your original intention, use your wisdom and time well, and let’s work together to make the broader public understand that blockchain and cryptocurrency are not just for speculation. They can be applied to aspects of life like publishing, providing tangible value to the world, and bringing about a win-win situation.
p.s. I dragged my feet for two weeks before finally watching Another World. I deliberately avoided all spoilers beforehand, only to realize after watching that I was deceived by the art style—the story was incredibly heavy. Overall, the flaws do not obscure the gems; it is bursting with sincerity and must be supported. I don’t mean just because it’s a Hong Kong production, but because any team that produces animation like this absolutely deserves support and attention.
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