The token price of the cross-chain router protocol, Multichain (MULTI), experienced a significant 30% decline within a 24-hour period, currently trading at $4.97. The sell-off was triggered by reports from users who stated that their Multichain funds had not been received due to an unexpected delay in a backend node upgrade.
According to an admin in the Multichain Discord channel, certain routes such as Kava, zkSync, and Polygon zkEVM were temporarily suspended, causing inconvenience to affected transactions. The admin assured users that all impacted transactions would be processed once the upgrade was completed, apologizing for any inconvenience caused.
Additionally, rumors and market speculation may have fueled the sell-off. A wallet address linked to Fantom Foundation, a layer-1 blockchain developer, reportedly withdrew 449,740 MULTI (equivalent to $2.4 million) from liquidity on the decentralized exchange SushiSwap. Furthermore, unverified rumors circulated, suggesting that the Multichain team had been arrested by Chinese authorities, allegedly controlling $1.5 billion of contract funds.
On the same day, blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain reported MULTI outflows worth at least $3 million from smart money accounts.
Despite the token’s decline, the Multichain protocol’s total value locked (TVL) remained relatively stable at $1.6 billion. Founded in Singapore in July 2020, Multichain was established to facilitate inter-blockchain communications. It surpassed $10.5 billion in peak TVL in early 2022 before the onset of the cryptocurrency bear market.
In a seed round led by Binance Labs, Multichain raised $60 million in December 2021. As part of its efforts to support native multichain projects, the protocol recently announced a $100-million ecosystem fund.
