Alleged rug pull Freeway halts crypto withdrawals, erases execs
Freeway, the UK-based crypto platform that offered users up to 43% yield via so-called “Supercharger simulations,” has been branded a “$100m+ rug” after it halted all withdrawals and removed information about its execs from its website.
According to its website, these Supercharger simulations hold more than $161 million in assets. Superchargers are purchased by Freeway users in order to earn rewards and can supposedly be cashed out via a buy-back system, which was suspended yesterday.
Blaming “unprecedented volatility in Foreign Exchange and Cryptocurrency markets in recent times,” Freeway announced the measures on Twitter as well as via a pop-up on its website. The message states that Freeway will be “allocating capital to its underlying portfolio” to prop up yields, and will not honor buybacks “for a temporary time,” before promising an update soon.
On Saturday, a warning was published by Twitter user FatManTerra, an anonymous account that has amassed over 100k followers in the wake of May’s Luna/UST implosion.
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The rumored delays in large withdrawals may have precipitated a bank run, with Freeway’s suspended buy-back announcement coming less than 24 hours later, rather than FatManTerra’s predicted “next few months.”
Following the official announcement, the profiles of team members were reportedly removed from the website.
The market has not taken the news well; the platform’s own token, FWT, is down over 75% in the last 24 hours.
The incident has clear parallels with the collapse of Celsius in June.
At one time thought to contain over $28 billion in user funds, Celsius halted user withdrawals the day after former CEO Alex Mashinsky brushed off concerns as “FUD and misinformation,” despite having extracted millions in the preceding weeks. The business filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy a month later.
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