Crypto investors who bought latest dog-themed shitcoin lose nearly $60M
Investors in another dog-themed crypto project are nearly $60 million out of pocket after a founder allegedly drained the project’s funds before the token sale finished.
AnubisDAO — named after the dog-headed Egyptian god of death — went on sale last Thursday (October 28).
After some social media hype from DeFi influencers, the project (a fork of another DAO) quickly gained popularity. It raised more than 13,000 WETH ($57 million) in just 20 hours.
But by Friday, crypto’s latest shitcoin with a Shiba Inu mascot, was over. All Wrapped Ether raised was drained from its operational wallet (which it calls a liquidity bootstrap pool), leaving crypto investors out of pocket.
Crypto investors lost to rug pull or phishing attack?
Founding member “Sisyphus” published a timeline of what they allege is a rug pull by a “rogue team member.”
Fellow AnubisDAO creator, using the moniker Beerus, had sole control over the project’s wallet containing all of its native token ANKH. Sisyphus would later call this a “crucial mistake.”
- Around four hours before the token sale was due to end, 13,556 WETH ($56 million) was removed from the AnubisDAO liquidity pool.
- The crypto was then transferred to three different wallets.
- Beerus deleted his Twitter account shortly after the exploit. His own wallet was unaffected by the alleged “hack.”
Beerus, tweeting from an alternative Twitter account, claimed to have opened an email laced with malware.
Sisyphus on the other hand claims that security researchers have been unable to identify anything malicious. They are offering a 1,000 ETH ($4 million) reward for the return of funds.
Copper — the platform that hosted the AnubisDAO sale — released a statement following ANKH’s crash. The token now sits worthless on Copper.
“It was tough to watch this play out in real-time and although we are building a permissionless platform we want to do so with minimal harm to users.”
It said the AnubisDAO rug pull made it question Copper’s permissionless system. It also cancelled the listing of a copycat token which launched shortly after the original ANKH token was rugged.
“The Copper team was presented with the choice to either keep the new auction up and risk our users being further harmed by it or take it down,” it said.
“Basically, either stay true to our permissionless ethos no matter the potential harm to our users, or break it and start curating auctions. After a quick debate, we took a middle ground, and instead removed the auction list altogether,” Copper added.
The blame game
Both Beerus and Sisyphus claim to be cooperating with authorities. Beerus has handed over a computer and filed a report with police in Hong Kong.
Sisyphus says they are working with Home Land Security Investigations (HSI) and recently tweeted to encourage US-based crypto investors to report their losses.
Beerus, on the other hand, is using his remaining Twitter account to attempt to clear his name.
[Read more: Central, South Asia love DeFi so much, crypto volume spiked 700%]
Although, crypto investors on Twitter seem cynical about the AnubisDAO situation. One user accused the founders of “putting on an act,” another simply questioning the logic of keeping $60 million in a hot wallet.
In any case, most of the $60 million is sitting in the “Anubis Rug 3,” the third wallet to have received crypto after the rug pull.
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