Infamous Crypto Rug Pull Scams: A Deep Dive Analysis

Notorious Crypto Rug Pull Scams and Their Impacts

The crypto market is a large market with high potential and at the same time, it is a high-risk and high volatile market, particularly when it comes to rug pull scams. These scams have caused investors to lose a lot of money, and the fraudsters vanish with the investors’ money amounting to millions. The following article looks at some of the most infamous rug pulls in the crypto space, how they were executed, and the effect on investors, with OneCoin, AnubisDAO, Defi100, Stable Magnet, and the Squid Game Token.

OneCoin 

OneCoin, the biggest cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, raised $4 Billion by falsely pledging investors high returns and showing itself as a legitimate business. 

Ruja Ignatova the founder of OneCoin from Bulgaria, who vanished in October 2017 and is now on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, OneCoin defrauded people out of billions. 

Ignatova, who faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted, deceived victims by claiming OneCoin would be the 'Bitcoin killer,' while the company primarily sold course materials and lacked an active blockchain, relying instead on an SQL server. 

After her disappearance, her brother Konstantin Ignatov took over but was arrested in 2019 and pleaded guilty to fraud and illegal activities.

Anubis Dao 

AnubisDAO, a dog-themed cryptocurrency project, raised $60 Million in Ethereum(13,597 ETH) from investors in exchange for ANKH tokens. 

However, within 24 hours, the funds were transferred to a different address and never recovered, leaving no liquidity for trading and crashing the ANKH token's value to zero. 

Marketed as a fork of OlympusDAO, AnubisDAO lacked a website or white paper, operating solely through a Discord server and an inactive Twitter account, with developers using pseudonyms. Chainalysis highlighted this incident in its 2021 crypto crime report, warning investors to avoid new tokens without a code audit, emphasizing AnubisDAO as a cautionary tale.

Defi100 coin

The Defi100 project, a DeFi protocol on the Binance Smart Chain, is infamous for one of the most audacious rug pulls in the crypto community. 

On May 22, 2021, the project's website shockingly displayed a message admitting to the scam, stating, "We scammed you guys, and you can’t do anything about it." Crypto analysts estimate that the creators absconded with $32 million of investors' funds.

Stable Magnet Rug pull

The Stable Magnet automated market maker (AMM) rug pull, valued at over $27 million, employed a sophisticated attack method. The scammers exploited vulnerabilities in Etherscan and BscScan verification models, allowing them to deploy a different code library than the one referenced in the source code. 

This enabled them to drain liquidity pairs and transfer tokens, resulting in significant financial losses for investors.

Squid Game Rug Pull

The Squid Game Token (SQUID), a scam cryptocurrency inspired by the popular Netflix series, was created in 2021 by an influencer on Binance SmartChain. The Squid Game token raised $3.3 million from investors then it turned out to be a rug pull, with developers disabling the token's ability to be sold and then disappearing with investors' money.

Conclusion

Rug pulls remain a constant threat in the crypto market, targeting and conning investors and leading to significant losses. Thus, it is possible to save oneself from such scams by familiarizing oneself with the different types of rug pulls and the signs that indicate a scam is in progress. Some of the risks include; To minimize such risks, it is recommended that the best practices for investing be followed including; Not investing in any new tokens that have not been audited for code. OneCoin, AnubisDAO, Defi100, Stable Magnet, and Squid Game Token are some examples of how one should be careful in the world of cryptocurrencies.

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