Web3 is Going Just Great

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.

It's not clear whether Ulbricht has taken over control of these wallets, or if they are still being operated on his behalf. Either way, whoever does control the wallets made a big mistake when they tried to cash out on their memecoin stash by adding single-sided liquidity on Meteora. They accidentally initialized the liquidity pool at too low a price, allowing a MEV bot to snap up 5% of the token supply (notionally ~$1.5 million) at a discount and resell them.

The wallet operator then made the same error again with a larger quantity of tokens, selling off another 35% of the supply and losing out on around $10.5 million in notional value.

According to US prosecutors, "KuCoin was used to transmit billions in suspicious transactions and potentially criminal proceeds, including proceeds from darknet markets and malware, ransomware, and fraud schemes."

KuCoin has agreed to pay $297 million in penalties, and will leave the US market for at least two years. Furthermore, two company founders who were also charged will no longer work for the company. Prosecutors reached a deferred prosecution agreement with the two founders, who will also forfeit around $2.7 million each.

The team has announced that the pause will last for 90 days as they explore options to save the project.

After the Trump family actually did launch the $TRUMP and $MELANIA memecoins, several more tweets by the @TrumpDailyPosts account appeared to crosspost additional announcements by Donald Trump on Truth Social of memecoins with names like $POTUS, $WIN, $POWER, and $MAGA. The tweets contained the date and timestamps that normally establish that a post on the account is a repost of Trump's genuine Truth Social posts.

It's not clear if the @TrumpDailyPosts Twitter account was hacked or if those running it decided to scam their followers. However, by sharing the now-deleted posts to their large following, they made around $1.25 million from people who were hoping to hop on the trend and buy in early to new Trump-backed memecoins.

The reaction to his post was not exactly warm, with lawyer Ari Cohn tweeting: "🎶Look at this grift, isn't it neat? Wouldn't you say God's debasement's complete? 🎶"

After a very brief spike in token price, the memecoin collapsed.

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."

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.