Lawrence is now suing Crypto.com, although this may be challenging given they apparently weren't behind the scam. Lawrence has also said that he has sold his house to pay for legal costs.
Crypto founder loses over $250,000 to crypto scam
Bryan Lawrence, the leader of a crypto project called Glow Token, recently shared that he'd fallen victim to scammers impersonating employees of the Crypto.com exchange. Lawrence said that scammers promised to list Glow Token's FLARE token in exchange for more than $250,000 in "security deposits". Crypto.com later contacted Lawrence, asking him to stop falsely claiming that his token would be listed on Crypto.com, and alerting him to the apparent scam.
Recur NFT platform shuts down after $50 million Series A
In September 2021, the Recur NFT platform announced it had raised $50 million in a Series A funding round that saw the startup valued at $333 million.
In December 2021, the company offered $300 "Recur Passes", which promised holders early access to NFT drops and other perks. One of them resold for $88,888 in February 2022.
Now, Recur has announced they will be closing up shop, and warned users to migrate their assets away from the platform in advance of a November shutdown. The company cited "unforeseen challenges and shifts in the business landscape".
As for the Recur Passes, they're currently selling for somewhere between $7 and $11.
Terra website hijacked by phisher
Despite the catastrophic Terra/Luna collapse in May 2022, the Terra blockchain is still up and running. On August 19, the official Twitter account for the Terra project tweeted that the project's website had been hijacked, and was being used by a phisher to try to obtain access to users' wallets. When the website is opened, it prompts visitors to connect their wallets, which then allows the phishers to drain funds.
Despite a tweet on August 19 that "sites are coming back online", and a developer stating that they were "mostly back in control", the website apparently remained compromised for several days. The project reiterated via tweet on August 20 that the website was still not safe to use.
It's unclear how much was stolen as a result of the hijacking.
Exactly Protocol hacked for at least $12 million
The Exactly Protocol, an attempt to "decentralize the credit market" built on the Optimism layer-2 network, was exploited. The protocol announced a pause to investigate a security issue, after they were alerted to suspicious transactions.
An attacker has siphoned more than 7,160 ETH (~$12 million) from the project, which they've bridged back to the Ethereum main chain. The Exactly Protocol's TVL plunged from $37 million to under $12 million following the attack.
Exactly writes on their website that they had been audited by four different firms: Chainsafe, Coinspect, ABDK, and Cryptecon.
Fed issues cease and desist to FTX-connected Farmington State Bank
Farmington State Bank, also known as Moonstone Bank, is a tiny Washington state bank that drew scrutiny after the FTX collapse for receiving an outsized investment from the firm. The investment appeared to be an attempt by FTX to gain control of a US bank, and raised questions over how the purchase was approved by federal regulators.
Now, the Federal Reserve Board has issued a cease and desist to Farmington State/Moonstone, claiming they have violated the commitments they made while going through the approval process. Despite promises not to do so, the bank engaged in digital asset activity, reportedly working with stablecoin issuers.
- "Crypto Firm FTX’s Ownership of a U.S. Bank Raises Questions", New York Times
- "Alameda-funded bank Farmington State gets cease and desist from Fed", Protos
- Cease and desist from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Blockchain Capital co-founder loses $6.3 million in SIM swap hack
Blockchain Capital co-founder Bart Stephens has filed a lawsuit against as-yet-unknown individuals who he says stole $6.3 million in cryptocurrency from him. The attackers used a SIM swap attack to gain access to his crypto wallet, which they then drained of various tokens.
The attackers also tried to steal around 80 BTC and 6,500 ETH (currently worth over $12.6 million) from a cold wallet belonging to Stephens, but were thwarted by an email alert sent to Blockchain Capital employee.
$1.7 million rendered inaccessible for weeks in broken bridge to new Shibarium network
People were very excited when the Shiba Inu-focused "Shibarium" layer-2 Ethereum blockchain went live on August 16. The dog-themed network is part of a push to make Shiba Inu a "serious blockchain project" — though the network will use $BONE, $TREAT, $SHIB, and $LEASH tokens, and is still fundamentally based around a dog meme.
A bridge between Ethereum and the Shibarium network was released as the network went live, and eager users quickly transferred a combined 954 ETH (~$1.7 million) to the bridge contract so they could access it on the new chain. However, users started reporting that transactions were stalled, and they weren't able to access their tokens on the Shibarium side.
The team quickly shut down conversation on Discord as more issues were raised, and claimed in a blog post that the issues were caused by nothing more than the network being overwhelmed with traffic. The team denied the authenticity of screenshots of a Telegram chat appearing to show the lead developer writing that the funds were unrecoverable, insisting they were safe.
Finally, weeks after the botched launch, Shibarium re-enabled the bridge and told users they could once again access their funds. Though there have been some delays in transactions, the "stuck" funds appear to be retrievable.
SwirlLend rug pulls for around $460,000
Despite the fact that Coinbase's Base blockchain was only officially launched a week ago, and a relatively small amount of funds are locked on the chain, it's already racking up its own tally of scams and hacks.
SwirlLend was a lending protocol operating on both Base and the similarly newborn Linea chain. Shortly after its launch, the project drained a combined $460,000 from the two chains, then deleted its social media accounts.
Shenzhen Shikongyun Technology accused of $83 million Filecoin pyramid scheme
Shenzhen Shikongyun Technology, a company focused on mining the Filecoin token, has been accused of running a pyramid scheme. Four of the company's executives were also charged. According to Chinese law enforcement, they had been soliciting investments in what was ultimately a pyramid scheme, exaggerating the likely returns from their mining efforts.
Shenzhen Shikongyun Technology was operating in mainland China despite a ban on cryptocurrency activities in September 2021.
Prime Trust files for bankruptcy
After the Nevada Financial Institutions Division issued a cease and desist describing Prime Trust as insolvent in June, then successfully requested the company be placed into receivership days later, it's no huge surprise that Prime Trust has filed for bankruptcy.
Prime Trust is a crypto custodian that previously served companies including Binance US, Swan Bitcoin, and BitGo. Just a year ago, the company announced they had raised $100 million in a Series B funding round, and planned to add crypto retirement accounts to its list of products. It's probably a good thing that didn't pan out.
According to bankruptcy documents, Prime Trust has between $50 million and $100 million in assets, but between $100 million and $500 million in liabilities. They report having between 25,000 and 50,000 creditors.
- "Crypto custodian Prime Trust files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy", CoinTelegraph [archive]
- Form 201 in Prime Core Technologies Inc. bankruptcy [archive]
- Tweet thread by Cryptadamist [archive]