Nov. 11, 2021: $CVX WARS: The Phantom $MOCHI
A band of rebels executes a precision strike
EPISODE I
THE PHANTOM MOCHITurmoil has engulfed DeFi. Curve faces Civil War over the fate of a whitelist. Meanwhile, the entire universe is fighting for control over Convex.
With $SPELL, $ROOK, $OHM, and $BADGER already deep in battle, a surprise player has emerged from the shadows with a surprising amount of firepower from questionable sources.
Lately the Curve Wars looked as though they may be turning inward. A vote on removing the whitelist was on track to become the most contentious vote in Curve’s history, splitting the community in half. Both the rank and file and the influential elites found themselves split 50-50. Friends turned to enemies. Brothers fought brothers.
The Curve community had never been so divided. If it devolved any further, we may see civil war erupt. Until a series of bombshells ripped up the battlefield.
The fireworks occurred as $ROOK and $OHM had retreated to petition for increased funding for the war efforts. The wars turned quiet for just long enough to recuperate, when the tranquility was punctured by a series of explosions.
At first people assumed an eruption of such awesome firepower could only be the work of the legendary Tetra Chungus. However he had an airtight alibi. As the explosions rang out, he was busy pleading with the $OHM council to escalate the Convex Wars. It was as if somebody wanted to send a message.
The perpetrator was quickly uncovered to be none other than the notorious Mochi Ibu gang, led by the rogue-ish AZtztk. Mochi had been operating on the outskirts of the Curve factories for weeks. They’d worked every influencer in town with their aggressive bribe game, swiftly climbing the top of the rewards charts. They were able to rake in $100MM in liquidity. Degens didn’t particularly ask questions about where their yield came from, as long as it paid out in juicy $CRV.
With their $USDM pool flush with cash, the $MOCHI mafia had the final piece they needed to unleash their precision strike.
In hindsight, the entire operation was exposed as a flimsy house of cards. The bandits could print as much $MOCHI as they like to convert into their $USDM “stablecoin.” They could use this $USDM to drain their Curve pool for harder money. Anybody who had put money into the $USDM pool to farm the outsized rewards was left with their hand caught in the cookie jar.
The most unexpected twist came when the mechanics of the scheme were revealed. One might assume the casual minting of trillions of $MOCHI tokens would render them worthless, (or any token, TBH).
Yet when they locked the $CVX they accumulated, the market apparently took it as a bullish sign for $MOCHI. The token briefly pumped.
AZtztk may have successfully made off with the $CVX, but at what price? When Tetranode emerged to survey the wreckage, he swore blood vengeance would be enacted.
Peasants, run for cover. You would get only one warning. Don’t sleep in DeFi.
The Curve community, once staring down civil war, would again find themselves united. Talk of a civil war, now ancient history.
The emergency DAO quickly hopped to action, killing the $USDM gauge and triggering a run on the only coins left in the pool.
The Mochi Inu bandits may have made off with $46MM worth of Convex, but it was not without casualties. They may have sacrificed their $USDM and possibly even $MOCHI to do so. Their plans to keep pumping activity through the pool, also erased. No qualms about betraying the $100MM in liquidity who dared to trust their funds to the $USDM pool, just a rung to stomp their boot on in the perilous climb to the top.
All just the price the $MOCHI gang was willing to pay to obtain the awesome power of Convex. $46MM in staked CVX cannot be easily erased. Their gambit elevated the band of rebels from bit players to powerhouses in the Convex Wars forever more.
The swift action of the Emergency DAO may have ended this skirmish and established a tentative peace. Yet every soldier knows peace is nothing, but the interlude between wars.
For more, we recommend this thread by MidasTheFool.
Read Disclaimers! Author is a CRV/CVX maxi, and has a stake of $SPELL and $OHM, but thankfully has no funds in $USDM or $MOCHI.
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