Bitget accuses "professional arbitrage" group of profiting $20 million from VOXEL market manipulation
After trading — and prices — surged in Bitget's market for the thinly traded video game token VOXEL, the company has accused a "professional arbitrage" group of "improperly" profiting $20 million from manipulating the market. A Bitget executive stated on Twitter that they had issued legal demands to eight accounts they said were responsible for "instigating" the unusual trading activity.
Mantra token price suddenly collapses by 90%
Mantra's $OM token price suddenly crashed by around 90%, with the project's supposed "market cap" shrinking by around $5 billion in the span of hours. Mantra is a layer-1 blockchain project aiming to support real-world asset trading.
Some have accused Mantra of rug-pulling or accused Mantra investors like Laser Digital of mass sell-offs. However, Mantra claims that the flash crash was due to "reckless forced closures initiated by centralized exchanges on OM account holders" — a claim that has been questioned by those observing the rapidity of the crash.
Polymarket suffers governance attack as whale manipulates Ukraine bet resolution; refuses refunds
Bets on the Polymarket platform where the outcome is not clear are resolved using an oracle system called UMA, or Universal Market Access. Holders of the UMA token participate in a vote to determine the outcome of challenged market resolutions.
Recently, $7 million was spent in a Polymarket market over whether Ukraine would agree to Trump's proposed mineral deal. Though no mutual agreement was reached, the market resolved to "yes". When it was challenged, a large holder of the UMA token cast a substantial number of yes votes to sway the outcome of the resolution, leaving the outcome in place.
Although Polymarket acknowledged that "This market resolved against the expectations of our users and our clarification" (referring to a Polymarket clarification that the resolution was too early as no mutual agreement was reached), they also refused to issue any refunds, writing that "this wasn't a market failure". "This is an unprecedented situation, and we have been in war rooms all day internally and with the UMA team to make sure this won't happen again. This is not a part of the future we want to build," the team member added.
Binance acknowledges employee insider trading
Binance announced on Twitter that they had fired an employee after discovering that they had engaged in insider trading. The employee took a large position in a token that he knew would be engaging in a "token generation event", then quickly sold off the tokens after the project announced the event. According to Binance, this allowed him to "realize significant profits".
Binance announced that they had fired the employee, as "This behavior constitutes front-running based on non-public information obtained from his previous role and is a clear breach of company policy." The company became aware of the insider trading after they were alerted by outside parties who submitted tips to the company.
Argentinian president Javier Milei promotes memecoin that then crashes 95% in apparent $100 million+ rug pull
A tweet from Argentina's president Javier Milei promoted a memecoin called Libra, which he described as a "private project [that] will [be] dedicated to encouraging the growth of the Argentine economy by funding small Argentine businesses and startups". The token quickly soared in price as traders poured in.
However, within hours of the launch, insiders began selling off their holdings of the token. The token had been highly concentrated among insiders, with around 82% of the token held in a small cluster of apparently insider addresses. Those insiders cashed out around $107 million, crashing the token price by around 95%.
After the crash, Milei deleted his tweet promoting the project. He later claimed he was "not aware of the details of the project and after having become aware of it I decided not to continue spreading the word (that is why I deleted the tweet)."
AlleyCat project developer takes presale money to fund gambling habit
The creator of the AlleyCat Solana-based cryptocurrency project has reportedly taken about 600 SOL (~$130,000) raised during the project's presale and transferred it to gambling platforms including Sportsbet.io and Bitcasino. Although the project raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in presale funds, stating it was needed for token liquidity on launch, only 18 SOL (~$11,000) was ever used for liquidity.
Altogether, around $827,000 has passed through the AlleyCat creator's Sportsbet.io account in seven months. Crypto scam-spotting account Rug Pull Finder has alleged that the AlleyCat creator is also behind other rugpulls.
The AlleyCat cryptocurrency project is based on the 1983 Atari game of the same name, though the crypto project does not appear to have any affiliation with (or approval from) the game's creators.
- "AlleyCat - The Gambling Deployer!", Rug Pull Finder
Dogwifhat memecoin lies about deal to put the meme on the Las Vegas Sphere after raising $700,000 to pay for it
In late January, the creator of the "dogwifhat" memecoin announced "Officially confirmed. Viva hat vegas." in a tweet accompanied by a photo overlaying the dog meme with the Las Vegas Sphere. Project organizers had raised around $700,000 in March 2024 to fund the project, hoping that the attention-grabbing stunt would spike the memecoin price. The announcement alone had somewhat of a similar effect, causing the $WIF price to spike by more than 30% shortly after.
However, crypto media firm Decrypt reached out to a spokesperson for the Las Vegas Sphere and discovered that no such deal had been reached.
Dogwifhat creators have since backtracked, replacing the tweet with a version omitting the "officially confirmed" portion, but still claiming that they "have been in ongoing negotiations with various parties to collaborate on the Sphere ad placement". They promised to return the funds "if, by any chance, the plan is not executed".
DogWifTools rugpuller tool rug pulls the rugpullers
A suite of software tools called DogWifTools was popular among memecoin creators looking to rug pull unsuspecting traders. By helping token creators mask supply control and fake trading activity, the tool was used to convince outside traders that a token had potential — at least, up until the token creator pulled the rug out from under them.
However, poor security by the software developers allowed attackers to ship a remote access trojan (RAT) along with the DogWifTools release. Once the package was downloaded, the trojan began scanning infected devices for crypto private keys, login information, and other sensitive data. Attackers even used scans of identification documents taken from their targets' computers to create Binance accounts.
Ultimately, around $10 million was stolen from would-be scammers. Along with the virus, the people who compromised DogWifTools left an angry note on infected machines: "Solana is a fucking joke and a scam from the beginning, it was designed for criminals by criminals! As a result, we have confiscated all your crypto, because you deserved it! You people who use automated tools to run these scam tokens are fucking disgusting to us. It's about time you got fucked over for once. Solana is nothing more than a shitty platform that enables scammers and rug pullers to steal from innocent users."
They also launched an onion website containing a message: "We specifically targeted scammers in the crypto market who were using tools to gain an unfair advantage over innocent, day-to-day traders. ... We believe it was morally correct to confiscate money that was not rightfully theirs." They added that they would soon be publishing the user data they stole on the scammers.
- "Poetic Justice", Rekt [archive]
Tsotchke "quantum-enhanced AI" crypto project appears to be based on lies
A project called "Tsotchke" has convinced a lot of people to buy up its token based on claims that it uses "spin-based quantum computing" to "enable quantum-enhanced AI at room temperature". However, cryptographers and quantum computer scientists have serious doubts about the claims made by the project's anonymous developers. "[If they] just said it was an advanced random number generator, it would be moderately accurate", remarked the CEO of a separate quantum/crypto crossover company. Another reviewer described the project as "primarily marketing language around a conventional PRNG."
Tsotchke's developers have reacted as any reputable scientists would to those questioning their lofty claims: "Disrespect me again and you're gone", threatened someone in charge of the project's Twitter account.
Zero Edge crypto casino enters liquidation after founder gambles away its seed money
Richard Kim, the founder of the Zero Edge crypto casino, resigned on July 2, 2024 after blowing most of the project's seed funding. Kim was a former executive of Galaxy Digital, and Galaxy was among Zero Edge's investors. Within a day of closing a seed financing round on June 20, Kim had begun putting the money into leveraged crypto bets, resulting in "the significant loss of company funds". On June 29, he admitted in an email to Zero Edge shareholders that he had blown around $3.67 million in company funds.
Kim admitted in an interview with CoinDesk at the time that "I really fucked up. I lost this money. It was grossly negligent. But I didn't intend to go run away with this money." He claimed that it all began when he lost $80,000 to a phishing website. "This triggered my old demons, the need to 'make it back' to preserve my reputation. ... [I] started down a negative spiral of leverage trading, raising more capital, and hiding the truth. ... By the seed round's close, I was ready to rebuild, to start fresh, putting past demons aside. But the moment I received the proceeds, something snapped. I felt compelled to make up for my missteps. Within days, millions were in leveraged longs. When bitcoin crashed, I experienced a complete wipeout."
What remains of the Zero Edge company has petitioned for voluntary liquidation in the Cayman Islands, where it was registered. Company liquidators tell a slightly different story from Kim: that Kim misappropriated most of the company's assets and then "disappeared".