Euler Finance cofounder loses private key and, with it, $3.8 million

January 10, 2024

Euler Finance cofounder loses private key and, with it, $3.8 million

As Euler Finance tried to recover from a massive hack in March 2023, and as founder co-founder Michael Bentley was dealing with matters in his personal life, he "made an error and it turns out that one of the private keys [to his personal crypto wallet] is no longer recoverable". The private key would have allowed him to recover assets from his hardware wallet, which had made his assets inaccessible after a malfunction.

With the malfunctioning hardware wallet and no recovery key, Bentley has lost access to assets including 1.2 million EUL tokens — over 4% of the total EUL token supply. These tokens are priced at about $3.8 million today, though at other times the tokens would have been worth up to about $15 million.

"I've now lost a substantial percentage of the crypto assets I held in cold storage, accumulated over more than seven years, including the majority of the EUL allocated to me for participating in Euler governance," said Bentley.

"Euler co-founder lost $3.8m worth of governance tokens after hardware failure", DL News [archive]

January 10, 2024

Trader loses $5.7 million to slippage in memecoin trade

A shiba inu dog wearing a chunky light pink knit hat with a brim

Dogwifhat's namesake (attribution)

A trader looking to buy $9 million of a recently popular Solana memecoin, dogwifhat (WIF), lost $5.7 million of their funds to slippage as they placed a massive order in a pool with relatively low liquidity. $5.7 million of their funds were lost to "slippage" — the discrepancy in price that can occur when a trade is so large or a market is so illiquid that the trade itself impacts the asset price.

Some have speculated that the trade might be an expensive marketing stunt to increase attention to WIF, which was losing some steam.

I'll give it to them: the token's namesake is pretty cute. But not $9 million cute.

"Trader Buys $9M of Solana Meme Coin Dogwifhat, But Loses Over 60% to Slippage", CoinDesk [archive]

January 10, 2024

So long, hexagon: Twitter removes NFT profile picture support

Just about two years after launching a feature in which NFT owners could show off their NFTs with special, hexagonal profile pictures, Twitter has apparently removed support for adding NFT avatars.

It's unclear if the move is spurred by the massively waning interest in NFTs, or if it's part of Twitter's broad slashing of functionality in the wake of Elon Musk's disastrous takeover and cost-cutting attempts.

Those who already had the hexagonal profile pictures now seem to have had them restored to their usual circular shape, and there's no longer any mention of the feature in Twitter's support documentation, and new NFT profile photos can't be uploaded. People can, of course, still right-click and save the images and upload them that way.

"X removes support for NFT profile pictures", TechCrunch [archive]

January 9, 2024

SEC Twitter account compromised, used to falsely announce approval of bitcoin spot ETFs

As the crypto industry collectively turns blue holding its breath for a decision on a raft of bitcoin spot ETFs currently in front of the SEC, the SEC Twitter account was hacked. The hacker posted an announcement stating that the Commission had approved bitcoin ETFs, even including a graphic with a fake quote from Chairman Gary Gensler.

Bitcoin briefly spiked by about $1,000 before dipping around $1,000 below its previous price, as traders excitedly reacted to the news, and then the news that the news was fake.

Tweet by the SEC [archive]

January 9, 2024

"Bitcoin Rodney" arrested in relation to Hyperverse scam

Bitcoin Rodney (attribution)

A crypto influencer known as "Bitcoin Rodney" was arrested by US authorities for his involvement in the HyperVerse crypto scam, which fleeced victims out of over $1 billion. In addition to promoting the scam, Bitcoin Rodney allegedly received more than $7.8 million directly from victims, which he exchanged for HyperVerse's $HU token. $5.8 million of this money was received after HyperVerse had disabled converting $HU to cryptocurrency, meaning that the victims never even had the opportunity to cash out their "investments".

Bitcoin Rodney has been charged with operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.

USA v. Rodney Burton criminal complaint [archive]

January 8, 2024

"Undead Apes Society" creator charged over rug pull

A grey ape skull on a blue background with clouds. The skull has a pink and green mohawk, a laser module for eyes, and teeth resembling piano keys. It's wearing a shredded white dress shirt with a tie.

Undead Ape #1 (attribution)

The creator of a Solana-based NFT project called Undead Apes Society has been charged with money laundering conspiracy and making false statements to investigators after rug-pulling fans of his NFT project. Devin Rhoden, an active duty Senior Airman in the US Air Force, had created the project and minted two collections: UndeadApes and Undead Lady Apes. They promised to then mint a third collection, "Undead Tombstones", which was highly anticipated. However, the project turned out to be a rug pull, and the prices of the two previous collections also plummeted as a result of their connection to a scam project. The Undead Tombstones project raised 1,250 SOL in April 2022, which was at the time priced at around $128,000.

When investigators subpoenaed Discord for Rhoden's chat logs, they found messages celebrating the rug pull. "good shit on us making a fuck ton of money," he wrote to his co-conspirator.

January 7, 2024

MangoFarmSOL rug pulls for $2 million

(attribution)

A Solana yield farming project called MangoFarmSOL encouraged people to deposit Solana tokens into the protocol to earn airdrops by January 10. However, on January 6, the project appeared to make off with all the tokens — around $2 million worth. They subsequently deleted their website and Twitter account, and closed their Telegram channel to new members.

MangoFarmSOL is unrelated to the other Solana-based mango-themed project, Mango Markets, which was exploited in October 2022 for more than $100 million.

"Funds on MangoFarmSOL drained, community alleges rug pull", Cointelegraph [archive]

January 7, 2024

Narwhal likely exit scams for $1.5 million

(attribution)

A cryptocurrency project called Narwhal appears to have rug-pulled, claiming that they were hacked. In a post on their Twitter account, they claimed that a "hacker attack" caused "significant losses to [their] community members", but urged followers to "maintain trust in the platform".

However, investigation by the CertiK blockchain security firm suggests that the "hack" may have been an inside job, with much of the $1.5 million that was "stolen" going to wallets with links to the Narwhal team.

The Narwhal project had launched in mid-December.

January 6, 2024

xKingdom rug pulls for $1.25 million

(attribution)

The xKingdom project promised users a way to "build your kingdom" on Twitter, earning tokens by interacting with tweets and doing "quests". Users had to borrow XKING tokens in order to participate.

On January 6, the project's creators drained the tokens that had been put into the project, then deleted their website and social media accounts. Altogether, they withdrew 558.3 ETH (~$1.25 million).

"XKingdom Incident Analysis", CertiK [archive]

January 6, 2024

CoinsPaid hacked again

(attribution)

The crypto payments platform CoinsPaid was hacked for the second time in six months. This time, around $7.5 million in various tokens was stolen.

In July 2023, an attacker stole $37.3 million from the CoinsPaid platform. CoinsPaid said at the time that they suspected the attacker was the North Korean Lazarus hacking group, which has been a prolific perpetrator of cryptocurrency thefts.

Tweet by Cyvers [archive]

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