A misconstrued announcement from the HBAR Foundation created confusion among crypto investors. According to the controversial post, a BlackRock money market fund was tokenized on the Hedera blockchain.
BLACKROCK JUST TOKENIZED ONE OF THEIR MONEY MARKET FUNDS ON HEDERA $HBAR! 🔥 https://t.co/0TCxUfGjKa
— MASON VERSLUIS (@MasonVersluis) April 23, 2024
Following this news, the HBAR token price skyrocketed, gaining 96% in the last 24 hours to reach $0.13. However, BlackRock was only aware of the on-chain transaction despite the belief that it was actively involved.
HBAR Foundation’s Controversial Announcement Forces Token to Rally
A video posted by the HBAR Foundation suggested that BlackRock’s ICS US Treasury money market fund is tokenized on Hedera. It suggested that blockchain trading and infrastructure firms Archax and Ownera collaborated with BlackRock to tokenize the BlackRock fund.
HBAR Foundation stated that it was bringing the world’s largest asset manager on-chain. Consequently, crypto influencers with large followings, such as Mason Versluis, shared the post with misleading captions.
The post is now viral, with over 1 million views and thousands of reposts. The general belief that caused HBAR to rally is that BlackRock moved $22.3 billion in funds on the blockchain.
However, the founder of Cardano’s Ghost Fund DAO, Chris O’Connor, debunked the rumors. He stated that BlackRock was not involved with Hedera’s development and criticized the HBAR foundation for the misleading post.
According to O’Connor, BlackRock never selected HBAR to tokenize its funds and has no connection with the protocol.
Further, he explained that what happened was a Hedera project using a secondary market tokenized shares of a Blackrock fund. He likened the project to someone buying a Rolex and taking a picture claiming they partnered with Rolex when it’s false.
Per O’Connor, spreading such misleading news to pump tokens is wrong. He noted that the $HBAR token was pumped 35% immediately after the non-existent event circulated. Once insiders start to take profit, the coin will take a hit, losing all the amassed gains.
However, an X user, Chris V, questioned O’Connor’s approach, stating that ADA had already been in an ongoing war with XRP. Therefore, adding HBAR to the list of enemies was quite questionable.
According to Chris V, Cardano has more important matters to focus on than worrying about what happens to other chains.
Further Reactions to HBAR’s Update
Meanwhile, Graham, the CEO of Archax Limited, noted that the company chose to use the Hedera platform. While he noted that not all information was accurate, he confirmed that development for Real World Assets (RWA) continues.
HBAR lost some of its early momentum following the news debunk, it is still up by 43.7% today. While this is impressive, HBAR is still trading below its September 2021 all-time high of $0.57.
This announcement comes as the HBAR Global Governing Council approved the allocation of 4.86 billion HBAR tokens. This allocation, made in January 2024, is dedicated to further network development. This fund, worth $408 million at the time, is meant to solidify Hedera’s user base in 2024.