IOST: a hard fork froze deposits, the price rose up to 155% in two days, and the issuer's vault sent 1.74 billion tokens to Binance the same day

Subject: IOST (IOSToken). IOST has its own mainnet and a BEP-20 version on BNB Chain, contract 0xaf48b7e315a52518cfbf7d96c455d9dfad94cb48, which holds about 62% of the circulating supply. Price and perp data come from the public APIs of Binance, Upbit and Bithumb; on-chain data comes from every BNB Chain transfer and contract reads. Times are UK time (UTC+1).

The short version

1. It started with deposits paused for a hard fork. On 19 October IOST announced that mainnet v4.0.0 was live. It is a mandatory hard fork that improves transaction handling, contract execution and node stability, and does not touch token economics. At 10:48 on 20 October Upbit announced it would pause IOST deposits and withdrawals from 04:00 the next day. A dozen minutes later, from 11:00, IOST on Binance began rising on heavy volume. Over two days Binance spot went from 0.00075 to an intraday 0.00191 (+155%); it is now 0.00169.

2. Perps did the pushing. Binance IOST perps traded $975 million on 21 October, against $1.9 million on 19 October and $48.4 million on Binance spot the same day. Open interest went from $1.9 million to $16.3 million. Funding fell from +0.005% all the way to −2.00%, Binance’s floor: every four hours, shorts pay longs 2%. At one point the perp was 24.5% cheaper than spot. In other words, a lot of money was shorting the perp while spot kept rising.

3. The issuer’s vault released tokens on the day of the rally, and 1.74 billion went to Binance. The token creator minted BNB Chain IOST on 8 March 2025 and moved all 21.32 billion into a multisig-controlled lock contract five minutes later. The contract releases about 470 million a month, which passes through five or six multisigs to one address and then into the same Binance hot wallet. At 08:43 and 13:13 on 21 October that address deposited 1.74 billion IOST to Binance (about $2.38 million, 4.8% of circulating supply), the first deposits since 7 July.

4. The same route has been used every month for a year and a half. Since April 2025 the vault has released 8.74 billion IOST, of which 8.40 billion (96%) reached Binance through that one address; 12.52 billion remain. According to the allocation third parties attribute to the project, these tokens were meant for node rewards, airdrops, community incentives and developers. Whether they were sold after reaching Binance, or handed out from Binance to nodes and users, cannot be seen on-chain. The project has never published these addresses.

What IOST is

IOST is a public blockchain launched in 2018. It was pitched on its “Proof of Believability” consensus and high throughput, and Sequoia China was among its backers. It hit an all-time high of $0.1298 in January 2018 and is now 98.7% below that.

• The 2025 move to BNB Chain: In March 2025 it launched “IOST 3.0”, positioned as a Layer 2 on BNB Chain focused on real-world assets (RWA) and payments. According to CoinMarketCap, the community passed a proposal in January 2025 to issue 21.32 billion new BEP-20 IOST on BNB Chain, unlocked gradually until March 2030. The vault we found on-chain matches that issuance in size and timing.
• Supply: CoinGecko shows about 36 billion circulating and a 90 billion cap. BNB Chain IOST totals 22.37 billion from three mints: 21.32 billion on 8 March 2025, 140 million in May and 913 million in June.
• Contract: The BNB Chain version is verified and has no tax, blacklist or pause function. But it can still mint, and the minting right sits with the owner, a 3-of-4 multisig (GoPlus).
• Development: The mainnet code, go-iost, is open source. v4.0.0 was released on 14 October; the previous release, v3.11.5, came out in June 2024, more than two years earlier.
• Official moves: On 8 September the foundation announced a burn of 70 million IOST from the old ERC-20 version. Over the same period the vault was releasing about 470 million a month, almost seven times the burn.

What happened over the two days

When we checked on 21 October, Binance’s IOST mainnet deposits and withdrawals were under maintenance, while BNB Chain IOST deposits and withdrawals were open. Upbit only supports mainnet IOST, so once its pause began, its price was cut off from everyone else’s: when Binance reached 0.0018, Upbit sat around 0.0012. Bithumb stayed mostly within 2% of Binance.

Perps: volume up 500×, funding pinned at the floor

• Volume: Binance perps traded $1.9M on 19 October, $106M on the 20th and $975M on the 21st. Binance spot did $0.1M, $8.6M and $48.4M; Upbit $0.2M, $9.5M and $56.0M.
• Open interest: About $1.9M until 11:00 on 20 October, then up to $16.3M, roughly 8.5 times.
• Long/short ratios: Before the move, the retail account ratio was 1.0–1.2 and the top-trader position ratio about 1.7–1.8 (big traders leaning long). After it, the top-trader ratio fell to 0.8–1.3 and the retail account ratio to as low as 0.70 (most accounts short).
• Funding: Settled every four hours. It was +0.005% until 05:00 on 21 October, then −0.34%, −0.99%, −0.91% and −2.00%.
• Perp below spot: In the 18:00 hour on the 21st, spot closed at 0.00180 and the perp at 0.00136, 24.5% lower.

Funding at the floor and a perp far below spot mean the short side of the perp was badly crowded while spot was hard to borrow and sell. In that setup, as long as spot keeps rising, shorts pay heavy funding and get forced out, and their buying-to-close pushes the price higher still. That is a classic short squeeze. This rally came mainly from the structure of the perp market, not from anything in the hard fork.

The issuer’s vault: the same route every month

The largest IOST holder on BNB Chain is 0x0bb6…31e8, with 12.52 billion IOST, 56% of all BNB Chain IOST. This is how we tied it to the issuer:

• Straight from the mint: At 09:19 on 8 March 2025 the token contract minted 21.32 billion IOST to 0x2186…aff1, which is also the token contract’s creator (GoPlus). Five minutes later that address sent all 21.32 billion to 0x0bb6…31e8.
• It is a lock contract: It holds only IOST and is owned by a 3-of-4 Gnosis Safe multisig. Since April 2025 it has released tokens once a month, between the 3rd and the 9th.
• It matches the published issuance: 21.32 billion, unlocked monthly, consistent with CoinMarketCap’s description of “21.32 billion new tokens on BNB Chain, unlocking until 2030”.

Each month’s release is split across five multisigs (six from April 2026):

The last column is inference from the proportions; the project has not said what these addresses are for. What is certain is that every month these multisigs send their tokens to the same ordinary wallet, 0x26af…eeeb, and all 41 of its outgoing transfers went to Binance hot wallet 6 (0x8894…e4e3). 8.74 billion released, 8.40 billion deposited to Binance.

The two deposits on 21 October were unusual:

• Off schedule: Every earlier release fell between the 3rd and 9th of the month. This one came on 21 October, the day of the rally.
• After three and a half quiet months: The vault released nothing in July or August, then two months at once on 9 September, which stayed in the multisigs. Between 7 July and 21 October nothing went to Binance along this route.
• 08:33–08:43 (price already up from 0.00075 to 0.00126): the multisigs sent the 888M released on 9 September to the relay and, in the same minutes, claimed two more months from the vault; at 08:43 the relay deposited 888M to Binance, about $1.12M.
• 13:07–13:13: the multisigs sent the newly claimed batch on, 852M to the relay and 35.5M to another address; at 13:13, 852M went to Binance, about $1.26M.

Together that is 1.74 billion IOST, about $2.38 million, roughly 4.8% of circulating supply. A deposit is not a sale: whether these tokens were sold on Binance or used to pay node or user rewards cannot be seen on-chain. But the timing is clear: more than three months of tokens went to the exchange on the day the price doubled, deposits were paused and the perp was being squeezed.

The BNB Chain route: IOST left Binance in bulk, mostly for Gate

With mainnet deposits paused, BNB Chain IOST became the only route still open into and out of exchanges. On 21 October:

• 5.12 billion IOST left Binance and 2.54 billion came in (1.74 billion of it from the issuer). To cover withdrawals, Binance topped up its hot wallets with 3.7 billion from cold wallets (0xf977…acec, 0x5a52…efcb).
• Gate’s hot wallet took in 5.19 billion, from 151 deposit addresses; 84% of those tokens had been withdrawn from Binance first. Gate’s hot wallet now holds 5.05 billion, 22.7% of all BNB Chain IOST.
• On 14–18 October, only 100–250 million IOST moved on BNB Chain each day; on 21 October it was 26.1 billion, in more than 6,300 transfers.

Why so much moved from Binance to Gate cannot be seen on-chain. One possibility: funding on Gate’s IOST perp was also deeply negative (−0.95% when we checked), so someone could move spot there, sell it on Gate and go long the perp to collect funding. That is only a guess.

Scorecard

Where it could go

• Falls back once deposits reopen (about 50%): When Upbit and Binance reopen mainnet deposits, arbitrage will close the 33% gap, either by Upbit catching up or by everyone else falling back. The crowded perp short will unwind as funding normalises. Rallies driven by deposit pauses usually end around the time deposits resume.
• More squeeze, a higher spike, then a fall (about 25%): As long as funding stays at the floor and spot cannot be borrowed, perp shorts keep getting squeezed. Open interest is only $16.3M, so it does not take much money to push the price.
• A new range (about 20%): Volume fades and the price settles between 0.0012 and 0.0017.
• A real change in fundamentals (about 5%): For example, disclosing where the unlocked tokens go, or real usage data from the Layer 2.

What to watch

1. Upbit’s and Binance’s notices on reopening deposits: The moment they reopen, the gap between Upbit and everyone else will close quickly, usually with sharp swings.
2. Funding and open interest on Binance’s IOST perp: Funding back near zero and open interest falling usually mean the squeeze is over.
3. The relay 0x26af…eeeb and the vault 0x0bb6…31e8: 12.52 billion IOST remain in the vault; at 440–470 million a month that is more than two more years of releases. The timing of the next release and deposit is worth watching.
4. Gate’s IOST hot-wallet balance: If most of its 5.05 billion flows back to Binance or other exchanges, someone may be closing positions or selling.

Final word

IOST is different from our earlier issues. It is not a new token, its contract has no backdoor, and it has its own mainnet and spot listings on a dozen major exchanges. But these two days had little to do with the project’s progress. A hard fork that only changed node code led Upbit to pause deposits, and a crowd of perp shorts that could not borrow spot got squeezed all the way to the funding floor.

What is worth recording is the fixed route on-chain: the 21.32 billion tokens issued in 2025 have moved every month from the vault, through multisigs, to one wallet and into Binance, unchanged for a year and a half. This time, 1.74 billion tokens saved up over three months travelled that route on exactly the day the price doubled. For a token with 12.5 billion still to unlock, when that route moves next matters more than the hard fork or the rally.

This is an analysis of public data, not investment advice.

Sources and data

• IOST website · go-iost v4.0.0 release · IOST blog (Medium) · BscScan token page · GoPlus contract check · CoinGecko · CoinMarketCap project page
• Upbit notices: IOST network deposit and withdrawal pause (6681) · IOST holder airdrop, round 19 (6683)
• Key addresses: vault 0x0bb6dc29…31e8 · relay 0x26af5f8b…eeeb · token creator 0x2186c768…aff1
• Binance IOSTUSDT spot and perpetual public data: hourly candles, open interest, long/short ratios, funding; Upbit and Bithumb hourly candles