DecentraWorld project rug pulls for $1 million
The creators of the Decentraworld project, and its associated $DEWO token, rug pulled for 3127 BNB, valued at just over $1 million. The project promised an "ecosystem of dapps with privacy protocols by default". The website spoke of how "governments around the world want to keep controlling their citizens by fighting the one thing they can't control, the blockchain and crypto-assets", and the project promised to "help humanity maintain its privacy, control, and financial freedom". Unfortunately for the believers, this turned out not to be true when the project drained the funds and deleted their online presence.
Representative Madison Cawthorn under ethics investigation related to crypto, violated STOCK Act
The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ethics announced on May 23 that they had unanimously voted to investigate whether Representative Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) "improperly promoted a cryptocurrency in which he may have had an undisclosed financial interest", as well as one unrelated allegation.
On May 26, Cawthorn filed a disclosure to say he had bought between $100,000 and $250,000 of the "Let's Go Brandon" ($LGB) coin on December 21 — eight days before posting that the coin would "go to the moon" just before a deal with NASCAR was announced. The coin then went up in price and Cawthorn sold at least $100,000 of his holdings. This timing led to accusations that Cawthorn had advance knowledge of the partnership.
Cawthorn also disclosed in the same May 26 filing that he bought between $101,000 and $265,000 of Ethereum in late December. Although Congressmembers are required by the STOCK Act to disclose purchases of various assets (including cryptocurrencies) within 45 days of the transaction, Cawthorn's disclosure came five months after the purchase. Cawthorn recently lost his primary, ending his chances of re-election, but his current term isn't slated to end until January 2023.
- Statement of the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Committee on Ethics Regarding Representative Madison Cawthorn
- "Rep. Madison Cawthorn discloses 2021 ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ cryptocurrency purchase days after ethics probe announced", CNBC
- "GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn failed to properly disclose 'Let's Go Brandon' and Ethereum cryptocurrency purchases", Business Insider
Crypto speculator loses over $200,000 to wallet compromise
Crypto speculator Jonny Reid wrote on May 22 that his crypto wallet had been hacked and drained of approximately $203,000. He wrote that he had never owned a hardware wallet before and had only used MyEtherWallet and MetaMask. "My security has always been great, always cautious with phishing links / websites / discord / telegram / social media scans etc". He wrote that he suspected the compromise might have been the result of a Chrome extension he had downloaded to auto-refresh a page to schedule a passport appointment.
Reid traced the stolen funds until they disappeared into the crypto exchange "Fixed Float". Reid contacted the exchange, who told him they couldn't supply him with server logs without a law enforcement request. Reid wrote that he was "angry [with] the fact they cant provide me with any details to help me follow the trace" and urged crypto Twitter to try to pressure the exchange to release more information to him.
Founder of Milady NFT project revealed to have horrifying history involving a 4chan suicide cult, white supremacist cult, and pro-anorexia grooming
The founder of the Remilia Collective and its popular "Milady Maker" NFT project, "Charlotte Fang", was discovered to have been a key player in a white supremacist cult known as Kali Yuga Accelerationism (abbreviated "kaliacc"). They were also tied to a group called "Systemspace", that is variously described as a suicide cult and as a 4chan trolling attempt that nevertheless tried to drive people to suicide. They also engaged in what they themselves described as "grooming" and "bullying" of young people into disordered eating and self-harm, and were apparently deeply involved with pro-ana online culture.
"Charlotte Fang" originally tried to deny the connection, attempting to cover up the connections between their online aliases and encouraging others to lie and also cover up any mentions of the alter ego. However, they eventually admitted to their past, writing that it was "toxic baggage that's hurting Milady community & poisoning the vibe". They apologized for trying to hide the account, attempted to brush off their past actions as "trolling" that didn't reflect their "real views", announced they would be leaving the project team, and finished by saying they were "more bullish than ever for Milady".
Beeple's Twitter account is hacked and used to promote fake NFT mints
Attackers gained control of the Twitter account belonging to Beeple, an artist known for "selling" an NFT for $69 million in March 2021 and for his recent horror-inducing NFT collab with Madonna. They used the account to share two scam mint links — first to a supposed NFT collaboration with Louis Vuitton, then to "extra" artwork Beeple supposedly created but never minted as NFTs. The scam drew in around $272,000 in ETH and stole 45 NFTs worth approximately $166,000 before Beeple regained control of his Twitter account about five hours later.
Various commenters replied to Beeple's tweet to say they'd been scammed, and to ask if he could help them recover their funds or NFTs. Some blamed him and his poor security practices for their losses, asking if he would repay those who were scammed. He has not suggested he intends to do so.
bDollar stablecoin suffers $730,000 price manipulation attack
bDollar was the first algorithmic stablecoin on the BSC blockchain. An attacker was able to manipulate the price of underlying assets to pull 2,381 wBNB out of the protocol, worth around $730,000. The project had been audited by CertiK.
- "又一算稳项目被攻击，bDollar损失约73万美元", DefiDaoNews
Class action lawsuit filed against HUMBL blockchain platform
A litigation firm filed a class action lawsuit against HUMBL, a financial services company that touts its web3 and defi products. The lawsuit alleges that HUMBL and its executives made false and misleading statements about the company and its prospects, made "selectively timed announcements to keep Humbl stock price high so that Company insiders could sell off their holdings into artificially created volume", and sold its BLOCK ETX assets in violation of securities laws.
HUMBL stock has dropped from a high of $6.84 per share to a low of $0.11. Similarly the BLOCK ETX asset has dropped more than 87% from its high.
- HUMBL lawsuit website
Doodled Dragons serial rug-puller revealed to be behind yet another Solana project
The serial rug-puller who was behind the Balloonsville rug pull in February and Doodled Dragons rug pull in January has popped up once again, this time with a Solana NFT project called Reptilian Renegades. A project called Hydra Launchpad, which had recently announced they would be adding Reptilian Renegades to their lineup, were the ones to expose the project team member, who went by "Fuopist" on this project. Hydra claimed that they had been able to take control of the project's mint authority and cut off Fuopist from receiving further proceeds from the project.
After the Balloonsville rug pull, which used the Magic Eden NFT marketplace, Magic Eden announced they would no longer be accepting anonymous projects on their platform. Despite that, this person was able to launch Reptilian Renegades on Magic Eden, where they were able to get their account verified.
Following the unmasking, the Reptilian Renegades Twitter account posted a slew of tweets supposedly exposing various NFT influencers for shady behavior including undisclosed promotions. "I'm literally the Batman. I stop crime whilst committing crimes," they wrote in response to a person who tweeted, "The balloonsville guy is back and he's ready to tell you how corrupt NFTs are while he steals from you. The lack of self awareness is truly next level."
Users threaten to sue after yield generation project Stablegains loses $44 million in Terra collapse
A class action law firm sent a letter to the yield generation project Stablegains, demanding records on customer accounts, marketing and advertising strategies, and communications relating to the Terra stablecoin. Stablegains described itself as aiming to "make it simple and safe for everyone to benefit from advances in financial technology", and promised that "regardless if crypto markets are soaring or crashing, the value of assets under our management remains stable".
Unfortunately for their customers, it turned out that Stablegains was heavily invested in the Terra project's Anchor protocol, which collapsed along with the rest of the Terra ecosystem last week. Stablegains' website had stated they primarily generated yields through the asset-backed stablecoin USDC. However, after the collapse of Terra, Stablegains admitted that "All users' holdings are in UST" — which lost over 90% of its value.
"Quantum-resistant" blockchain QAN suffers bridge attack
The $QANX token for the QAN project suddenly plummeted in value as an attacker stole more than 4 million QANX from the project. The attacker subsequently swapped the tokens for around 370 ETH ($707,000). In a video posted to Twitter, the project CEO stated that it was "definitely a bridge issue", and that they'd shut down the project's bridge. They also said they had contacted exchanges to freeze the wallets that had been involved in the "issue".
QAN describes itself as a blockchain that helps "resist quantum attacks", though apparently not the types of bridge attacks that have become fairly common in the past year or so.