Fournier posted on Twitter, claiming he was scammed by his collaborator. When accused of rugging the token, Fournier replied "I'm very new to crypto and I promise you I didn’t rug it." "Buddy, we see your wallet. It’s all on-chain," replied another person. Fournier, apparently not knowing he was describing a rug pull, wrote: "I literally sold because it was going down increasingly. I don’t know who wouldn’t do that."
Students for Trump co-founder Ryan Fournier admits to rugpulling memecoin while trying to deny rugpulling memecoin
Ryan Fournier, a co-founder of the Students for Trump organization, worked with a memecoin creator to create a $TIKTOK memecoin, which he said was intended to celebrate TikTok lifting its brief restriction on US users amid an impending ban. The token quickly increased in price amid early attention. However, when the price began to drop, Fournier dumped 505 million TIKTOK for around $700,000 in SOL.
Melania Trump launches a memecoin of her own, tanking her husband's in the process
Before people had a chance to process the fact that the incoming president of the United States had just launched his own transparent crypto cash-grab, the soon-to-be First Lady did the same. Whoever is calling the Trump family's crypto shots seemed to think they could just follow the same playbook a second time and enjoy the same results, but the launch of the new token brought a sudden crash in the $TRUMP token value.
This is not Melania Trump's first foray into the crypto world. In December 2021, she launched her own line of NFTs — only to apparently wash trade them after a tepid response.
Meanwhile, some in the crypto world are reacting with horror at Trump's decisionmaking. While they hoped that Trump's administration would be crypto-friendly, they did not seem to anticipate that the Trump family would openly embrace some of the ecosystem's worst parts to enrich themselves at everyone else's expense.
Trump launches a shitcoin
In what is likely a preview of the levels of grift about to come — levels previously not thought possible — Trump has launched a Solana memecoin two days before his inauguration. The move was so unexpected that many believed the president-elect's Twitter account had been compromised to promote a fake scam token, but half a day later, it appears this scam token is of the genuinely Trump-backed variety.
Digital Currency Group settles with the SEC for $38 million over misleading statements surrounding Genesis collapse
The Digital Currency Group has agreed to settle with the SEC for $38 million over charges that its Genesis subsidiary misled investors. When the hedge fund Three Arrows Capital blew up and defaulted on a margin call in June 2022, DCG publicly downplayed the fact that their entire business was at risk, and overstated its ability to bail out the Genesis subsidiary by taking on its liabilities and doing some weird accounting maneuvering involving a $1.1 billion promissory note. In November, with further crypto market turmoil, Genesis could no longer meet withdrawal requests and collapsed. The company filed for bankruptcy the following January.
- Order from the SEC
MakersPlace NFT marketplace shuts down
Citing "ongoing market challenges and funding difficulties", the MakersPlace NFT platform announced it will be shutting down after six years of operations. The company had raised $30 million in funding in August 2021 from investors including Eminem, Sony Music, and Coinbase Ventures.
They wrote in their announcement that, although they had some money left, the "prolonged downturn" in the NFT market was causing them to "anticipate significant challenges in securing further investment which would make it difficult". They said they would be returning unused funding to investors and shutting down most of the site's functionality immediately.
- "MakersPlace Announces Market Exit", MakersPlace
BitMEX fined additional $100 million for regulatory violations
Although BitMEX had previously tried to argue that they should not face additional penalties after being fined $110 million in 2024 for Bank Secrecy Act violations, a judge has disagreed. BitMEX pleaded guilty to failing to implement an adequate anti-money laundering program, as required by US regulations. During the five-year period of "willful" non-compliance, the firm allegedly drew $1.3 billion in revenues.
BitMEX was not supposed to serve US customers, yet Americans made up around 11.5% of their customers. "BITMEX policies nominally in place to prevent such trading were toothless or easily overridden to serve BITMEX's bottom line goal of obtaining revenue through the U.S. market without regard to U.S. criminal laws," alleged a press release by the US Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York. They added: "Corporate executives took affirmative steps purportedly designed to exempt BITMEX from the application of U.S. laws like AML and KYC requirements, despite knowing of BITMEX's obligation to implement such programs by operating in the U.S. As part of BITMEX's willful evasion of U.S. AML laws, the company lied to a bank about the purpose and nature of a subsidiary to allow BITMEX to pump millions of dollars through the U.S. financial system."
- "Global Cryptocurrency Exchange BitMEX Fined $100 Million For Violating Bank Secrecy Act", press release by the U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York [archive]
- "BitMEX hit with additional $100 million fine over Bank Secrecy Act violations: report", The Block [archive]
The Idols NFT loses $324,000 to exploit
An attacker noticed a vulnerability in a smart contract for The Idols, an NFT project that also incorporates ETH staking functionality. They discovered that a function used to distribute rewards had a bug when the sender and recipient addresses were the same, allowing a holder to repeatedly claim rewards. By taking advantage of this bug, they were able to siphon 97 stETH (~$324,000) from the project.
Although The Idols boasts of two audits from several years ago, the contract containing the vulnerability may not have been audited.
- "The Idols NFT", Rekt [archive]
Sony accused of "rugging" after freezing IP infringing memecoins on their Soneium blockchain
![[person 1]
yeah the two meme tokens that everyone was excited about seem to be blacklisted now
[person 2]
0xea4E0CfF21Ea0a1650B658AAf5142720195245bB Is this what the team members do?
[person 3]
aibo now forbidden on explorer...
[person 4]
I just wanted a cute robot dog koin?
[person 5]
Why are you honeypotting coins lol
[person 1]
this is very bad vibes
[person 2]
A disastrous beginning
[person 1]
obviously not end-of-the-world but people bridged to Soneium to ape new memecoins and seeing themselves get locked out and rugged in real time](https://primary-cdn.web3isgoinggreat.com/entryImages/resized/sony-rug_300.webp)
Only hours after Sony launched its "Soneium" layer-2 Ethereum blockchain, the company was accused of "rugging" people who had purchased various memecoins launched on Soneium when it began prohibiting their trading. The two tokens, now listed as "forbidden" for trading, were based on Sony products. One, "Aibo", was themed around a series of robotic dog toys. The other, "Toro", was based on Sony's unofficial Toro Inoue mascot.
Sony's crackdown on these tokens perhaps should not have come as a huge surprise, given that the announcement of Soneium's launch touted "protecting content rights and creating fair profit-sharing mechanisms" among its goals.
Nevertheless, members of the Soneium Discord widely accused Sony of "rugging" or "honeypotting" them by prohibiting trading on the memecoins they had purchased.
Australian Open apparently scraps its NFT project
Holders of any of the several thousand "AO ArtBall" NFTs may be disappointed as the Australian Open appears to have abandoned the project aimed at tennis fans. The first NFTs originally sold for 0.067 ETH (~$275 at the time), and another round were minted for 0.23 ETH (~$450 at the time). However, the sale prices of the NFTs have steadily dwindled since early 2023, and recent sales have been for 0.003 to 0.0075 ETH (~$10–$25).
Buyers were told they could use the NFTs as a sort of fan pass, receiving access to a Discord, and earning ground passes and behind-the-scenes access for finals weeks. There was also a scheme in which NFT holders could redeem access to passes to matches.
However, the Australian Open seems to have let the project — launched at the peak of NFT hype — peter out, with no mention of redeeming passes, and project websites still promising a 2024 update. The Discord has been shut down.
UniLend exploited for almost $200,000
The UniLend project, which advertises itself as a "unified platform for all things AI and defi", was exploited for almost $200,000. An attacker was able to take advantage of a bug in a smart contract that handled token redemption.
UniLend acknowledged the hack, downplaying it as affecting "only" 4% of the platform's $4.7 million TVL. They offered a bounty to the attacker.