The launch was plagued by reports of delayed token distribution to early investors and technical issues.
Self-custodial Ethereum wallet Rainbow debuted its native token RNBW yesterday, Feb. 5. But the project’s token generation event (TGE) on Base, and the token’s debut for trading across exchanges, were met with reports of delayed distribution to ICO participants, which contributed to the token’s poor day-one performance.
RNBW/USD 15-minute chart, Feb. 5-6. Source: CoinbaseAccording to Coinbase data, RNBW hit a high of $0.05 on its first day of trading, but fell quickly and closed the daily session around $0.034, down more than 30%, putting its fully diluted valuation around $34 million.
That left most bettors on Polymarket scrambling, having expected the FDV to hit roughly $100 million just a day after the TGE.
Today, RNBW fell further, trading around $0.032 by press time, making its FDV around $32.17 million.
ICO Investors in the Red
The price is far below what early buyers paid. Rainbow conducted its initial coin offering (ICO) in mid-December 2025 via CoinList, where investors were offered RNBW at $0.1 per token. The sale saw 30 million RNBW tokens, or 3% of total supply, sold at an FDV of $100 million, meaning participants in that sale are now down more than 65% on their investments.
For U.S. investors, the situation could be even worse as their full token unlock won’t happen until December of this year, according to CoinList’s terms and conditions.
Back in 2022, Rainbow raised $18 million in a Series A funding round led by Seven Seven Six, the VC firm from Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, bringing total funding to $21 million. The multi-chain wallet is known for its rewards program and gamification, where users can earn points for their on-chain activity.
The firm explicitly connected RNBW with its points system when it first announced the token in September.
‘No Better Day for TGE’
The token’s drop came amid a broader market bloodbath that wiped out $2.6 billion in liquidations in a single day. Total crypto market capitalization fell to $2.3 trillion as Bitcoin slid toward $60,000, reaching roughly 50% below its all-time high of $126,080, set in October.
Soon after its TGE, Rainbow’s cofounder Mike Demarais indicated in an X post that some users had not received their claimed tokens, explaining “it’s because our backend token indexer has been getting slammed.”
As frustration over the messy launch mounted, Rainbow CEO Alex LaPrade took to X on Thursday evening eastern time to say he still believes “there was no better day for TGE than today,” noting that the project had planned to launch its token on Feb. 5 back in December. LaPrade added:
But the CEO’s public statement didn’t succeed in calming all investors. Some quickly fired back at the CEO, accusing the project of late token distribution to ICO participants, calling it a scam and demanding refunds.
Last year, MetaMask confirmed that it has plans to launch its own token, after years of hinting and speculation.
Source: https://thedefiant.io/news/tokens/rainbow-token-rnbw-tanks-65-below-ico-price-on-day-one-trading
