Pump Fun co-founder Dylan Kerler has been linked to a number of shitcoin rugpulls that extracted $75,000 from unsuspecting investors when he was just 16.
WIRED reportedly discovered that a developer using Dylan Kerler’s name launched eight coins in 2017. Two of these, eBitcoinCash and EthereumCash, reportedly made the developer $75,000 in Ether (ETH), worth $400,000 today.
The developer promoted these two coins in the BitcoinTalk forum, making numerous promises and generating enough interest to raise EthereumCash’s value to £1.3 million.
Read more: ‘Ave you got a license for that memecoin? UK bans Pump Fun
However, WIRED reports that they began selling their EthereumCash holdings in secret, which coincided with an 88% drop in value. They used EtherDelta to sell, making 240 ETH, before dividing it across various wallets on centralized exchanges.
Certik’s chief security scientist said, “We strongly suspect that [EthereumCash] was used by the developer for a rug pull.”
How WIRED linked Dylan Kerler to Dylan Kerler
Both coins were promoted by one person, using the accounts DOMAINBROKER and ninjagod.
In one instance, DOMAINBROKER shared a personal email address with the name Dylan Kerler, while ninjagod launched a thread that referred to Kerler as the developer of EthereumCash.
This developer also claimed in a Telegram group that they’re based in the UK city of Brighton. Pump Fun’s co-founder is also listed on the electoral records as having an address in the area, and a Pump Fun entity uses this address in its corporate filings.
Read more: Trader suing Pump Fun still uses the platform
A coin called Equis that was promoted by ninjagod on BitcoinTalk also shares identical code to EthereumCash and was featured on a YouTube account using Dylan Kerlar’s name.
Neither Pump Fun nor Kerler responded to WIRED’s request for comment. Protos has reached out to Alon Cohen, Pump Fun’s co-founder, for comment and will update this article if we hear anything back.
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