...and is definitely not an enormous grift that's pouring lighter fluid on our already smoldering planet.
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Credix subsequently announced they had negotiated with the thief, who they said agreed to return the funds "in return for money fully paid by the credix treasury". They did not disclose how much they paid to the hacker.
However, shortly after this announcement, the company deleted its social media accounts and disappeared, leading some to wonder if the "hack" may have in fact been a rug pull by insiders. The promised reimbursements have not yet materialized.
However, Kinto blamed the token crash on the exploit that was recently disclosed by VennBuild, claiming on Twitter that "we got hacked by a state actor". Venn seemed to corroborate Kinto's explanation that the crash was related to the exploit, tweeting that although they had tried to warn all vulnerable projects before publicly disclosing the bug, "Sadly the Kinto token was not found despite being vulnerable, and exploited without time to mitigate."
Kinto has announced a plan to try to fundraise to cover a $1.4 million loss in liquidity, then create a new $K token based on a snapshot of previous token holdings.
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)."
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.
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.
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."
For example, a "Vault of Gems" NFT project falsely claimed to be the "first NFT pegged to a hard asset, like jewelry", which would have its own exchange. A "Faceless" NFT project promised to produce comic books, a movie, and a clothing company. None of the promises ever materialized, and Hay and Mayo abandoned the projects soon after launching them.
Hay and Mayo worked to hide their involvement with their scams, and have been charged with harassment for attempting to threaten those who connected them. In one case, after a person revealed Hay and Mayo to be the ones behind the Faceless NFT project, the duo sent threatening emails and text messages to the man and his parents. In an email to his parents, they impersonated a law firm, and even threatened to make false sexual abuse claims against the man.
As the token price stuttered along with these revelations, insiders apparently decided to quit while they were ahead, and cashed out in a quick and coordinated sale.
This $10 million was later sent to a German non-profit foundation called the Wau Holland Foundation, which has also been fundraising and managing funds relating to Assange's legal defense. However, this transfer raised serious concerns among some members of the DAO who say they've effectively been cut out of decisionmaking, that the funds were transferred without their approval, and allege the treasury was mismanaged and crashed in value as a result.
Hacktivist, bitcoin core developer, and AssangeDAO organizer Amir Taaki accused fellow AssangeDAO organizer: "Harry Halpin you should be honest and direct with the people here. You believe the money should be kept in a foundation controlled by your people with Julian. You do not respect the community or believe in the DAO."
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