A major sell-off of HAY tokens, the native destablecoin of Helio Protocol, occurred on October 16, 2023, when one of the co-founders of Uniswap, JChan, dumped his entire HAY stack in a single transaction for 92 ETH. The transaction caused a massive price drop for HAY, which briefly reached zero on the Uniswap V3 (Ethereum) exchange. The funds were then transferred to jchan.eth, an ENS domain owned by JChan.
Destablecoin backed by BNB and redeemable for USD
According to CoinMarketCap, HAY is a destablecoin that is backed by BNB and is redeemable for US $1 worth of BNB. It is used for borrowing, liquidity mining, and payments on the Helio Protocol, a decentralized lending and liquid staking platform on the BNB chain. HAY has a maximum mint cap of ~5% of the total market capitalization of BNB, but the initial mint cap was much lower and was raised gradually as adoption increased.
JChan is a lesser-known co-founder of Uniswap, a popular decentralized exchange on Ethereum. He was involved in the early development of Uniswap alongside Hayden Adams, the main founder and CEO of Uniswap. JChan has been less active in the crypto space since leaving Uniswap in 2020. He has not publicly commented on his reasons for selling his HAY tokens or his involvement with Helio Protocol.
A rug-pull?
The sell-off of HAY tokens by JChan has raised questions about the security and sustainability of Helio Protocol and its destablecoin model. Some critics have accused JChan of being a “rug puller” who exploited the protocol’s over-collateralization mechanism to profit from his HAY tokens at the expense of other users. Others have speculated that JChan was unaware of the impact of his transaction or that he was forced to sell due to external pressure.
Hayden Adams, the founder of Uniswap and Helio Protocol, has not yet responded to the incident. He has previously stated that he burned most of his HAY tokens to ensure decentralization and fairness for the protocol’s users. He has also claimed that Helio Protocol has multiple risk management procedures in place to protect users from black swan events and market volatility. However, some users have expressed dissatisfaction and distrust with the protocol after losing money from the HAY price crash.
