The Financial Times writes, "While individuals have made similar warnings about the safety and reliability of digital assets, it marks a more organised effort to challenge the growing influence of crypto advocates who want to resist attempts to regulate the frothy sector."
Technologists draft an open letter to US lawmakers urging them to responsibly legislate crypto industry
Solana network halted again
However, Solana has been plagued with stability issues, and on June 1 it was taken offline by its developers for what CryptoWhale says was the eighth time this year. This occurred only days after an incident in which the Solana blockchain clock drifted significantly behind real-world time.
Former OpenSea executive arrested, charged with money laundering
After leaving OpenSea in the wake of the allegations, Chastain began pitching a new NFT platform called "Oval" to investors, seeking $3 million in seed funding.
Chastain was arrested on June 1. The two charges he faces each carry a maximum sentence of twenty years in prison. The Attorney's Office described the charges as the first ever relating to insider trading of digital assets, and stated that, "today's charges demonstrate the commitment of this Office to stamping out insider trading — whether it occurs on the stock market or the blockchain."
- Press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York
Toronto Comic Arts Festival sparks outrage by featuring NFT creator Saba Moeel, Moeel found to have widely traced her artwork
Moeel responded to the criticism in a slew of tweets, writing in one: "Why did i trace tank girl art? Why did Occidental soldiers raid the Iraqi national museum of art and steal all of our cultural artifacts and history? Many questions to answer". Moeef also accused those expressing concerns about her appearance of racism, and described them all as "people who love the central banking system". "Big organizations come out to try to destroy my community of 90% women, mostly WOC like me", she wrote.
One other TCAF featured guest, Ngozi Ukazu, withdrew from the Festival, writing, "Not only do I disagree with the platforming of NFTS, but I also will not be a featured guest alongside an influencer who traces art and explicitly commodifies Black culture." TCAF wrote on Twitter that they were preparing a response to "valid concerns", and the subsequent day announced that they had rescinded the invitation due to "code of conduct violations and the concerns expressed by the comics community".
Superlative Apes team does a "slow rug pull" after drawing in $2.9 million
The project has been plagued with issues including missed deadlines, accusations of plagiarism (somehow), and connections to another rug-pulled project. Additionally, a flawed staking contract required the team to have holders migrate their NFTs to a new contract — a slow and painful process that has resulted in most of the NFTs being "stuck" in a temporary contract. People who have questioned the project or accused them of rug pulling have been banned from the Discord and blocked on Twitter.
Despite the team's repeat (though very infrequent) claims that the project is still going and is not a rug pull, this appears to be a classic "slow rug" — that is, when a project team engages just enough to keep the community from accusing them of wrongdoing, while still effectively abandoning the project. On May 7, a former community moderator for the project stepped down, publicly stating that "the team has all but given up on the project, they come back every 4 weeks to put forth just enough 'minimal' (understatement) effort to not get sued", and accusing the project team of not paying them as agreed.
Another bug affecting Terra's Mirror Protocol loses the project $2 million (and counting)
Terra sleuth FatMan wrote on Twitter on May 30, "So far, the mBTC, mETH, mDOT and mGLXY pools have been drained. In around 12 hours, the market feed will kick in, and the attacker will be able to drain all of the mAsset pools (such as mSPY and mAAPL, mAMZN, etc.)". He begged Mirror developers to fix the oracle, writing that they are "completely MIA".
Another Bored Ape owner makes a typo, sells NFT for $180,000 less than they intended
The trader later confirmed on Twitter that it was their mistake rather than an account compromise or some other hack: "Yep, was a fat finger. Was trying to list at 105. Never thought it'd happen to me. Devastating."
Meanwhile, the NFT's new owner has it listed for sale for 110 ETH (about $219,000), which will net them a tidy profit if they find a buyer.
Luna 2.0 airdrop sends 2.1 million $LUNA to Mirror Protocol thief
The price of the new $LUNA token has been volatile on its first day, starting at around $17 and later valued around $5.70. This would make the attacker's holdings of airdropped tokens worth around $12.1 million, assuming they could find liquidity to cash out.
- Tweet thread by FatMan
- Luna price on CoinGecko
PokeMoney blockchain game rug pulls for $3.5 million
The project creators claimed it was a hack, and stuck around to try to keep the hope alive. They claimed on Telegram that for some reason they couldn't access the project Twitter account, and so couldn't inform their community of the hack. They also began rallying their community around hopes for a project relaunch. Meanwhile, they announced a "CHAT MUTE UNTIL TOMORROW TO AVOID FUD" — as any reputable, not-rug-pulled project would do, I'm sure.
Elon Musk deepfake tries to get people to give scammers Bitcoin
According to BleepingComputer, only about $1,700 in deposits appeared to have gone to addresses associated with the scam, although they acknowledged that the addresses are likely rotated and so the true amount may be larger.
Someone brought the scam to Musk's attention on Twitter, where he replied, "Yikes. Def not me." The YouTube channel hosting the videos was taken down shortly after.