Here’s why Mines of Dalarnia’s DAR crypto rallied over 600% today

DAR crypto saw a massive price pump ahead of its scheduled delisting from Coinbase.

According to CoinGecko, the token, originally tied to the blockchain game Mines of Dalarnia, shot up nearly 690% to hit an intraday high of $0.48 on the morning of May 15 morning Asian time, before cooling off to around $0.39 at press time.

The rally happened in an extremely high-volume environment, with daily trading volume spiking 14,600% from the previous day to cross $64 million. This kind of activity clearly shows traders were piling in, possibly due to fear of missing out (FOMO).

The sharp uptick in DAR’s price today comes amid renewed community interest ahead of its delisting from all Coinbase platforms tomorrow, May 16 at 2:00 PM UTC, alongside four other tokens. See below.

The exchange said it’s removing the token because a new version has been released, making the original version no longer compliant with its listing standards. Coinbase has advised users to either sell or withdraw their tokens before trading is suspended.

Some community members believe this recent price action may have been a coordinated effort by traders to draw in more buyers before exiting ahead of the delisting. Google search trends for DAR spiked around the same time, reflecting increased retail curiosity that may have intensified the price surge.

Another contributing factor to the sudden price spike may be the limit-only trading mode imposed by Coinbase. The DAR token has been in limit-only mode since May 2, as part of the delisting process. 

With market orders disabled under this setting, liquidity tends to thin out as traders exit positions, especially in the lead-up to removal. This creates a fragile order book where even modest buying activity can trigger sharp upward movements. 

In such conditions, high-limit bids, placed either speculatively or due to a lack of sellers, can amplify price movements and potentially trigger a broader cascade of reactive trading.

For those unfamiliar, Mines of Dalarnia is a blockchain-based action-adventure game where players mine, explore, and battle through procedurally generated levels to earn resources and upgrade their gear. The game initially ran on the Chromia blockchain and used DAR as its main token.

But in January 2024, the project rebranded and expanded into a broader Web3 ecosystem now called the DAR Open Network. This marked a major shift, from being just a game to becoming a full-blown platform supporting multiple games, AI integration, and cross-chain features.

As part of that upgrade, the original DAR token was replaced with D, a new token that supports governance, staking, AI agent interaction, and more advanced multichain utilities.

A migration portal was launched on Dec. 20, 2024, allowing users to swap DAR for D at a 1:1 ratio. The portal will remain open until Dec. 20, 2025.

Major exchanges like Binance, KuCoin, MEXC, Gate.io, BitMart, and Binance.US have supported the token swap and updated their trading pairs accordingly.

The Dar Open Network is officially set to transition to its mainnet on July 1, alongside the launch of its flagship game, Dalarnia Legends.