ZKasino exploiter saw $27M liquidated on Hyperliquid trade
One of the wallets behind the $33 million “rugging” of ZKasino has lost over $27 million while leverage trading on Hyperliquid, despite investors still waiting to be paid back.
According to X user @SigmaSquared, the wallet placed a 20x leverage trade on the price of ether (ETH) that would liquidate if it fell to $1,745. On Sunday, it duly did.
The wallet was involved in the likely rug pull of ZKasino back in April 2024. ZKasino is a decentralized gambling platform that convinced investors to invest their ETH into its “bridge-to-earn” program.
Read more: ZKasino $30M ‘favor’ to users — seamless transition or rug pull?
These investors were then unexpectedly told that these funds would be converted into its token ZKAS and wouldn’t be immediately withdrawable. The 10,505 ETH invested reached a price of $40 million, and users were only given a 72-hour withdrawal window in May 2024.
On April 29, 2024, Dutch authorities announced the arrest of a 26-year-old associated with ZKasino after seizing his luxury car and €11 million ($12 million).
Today, crypto sleuth ZachXBT named this person as Elham Nourzai, also known on X as @Derivatives_Ape.
ZachXBT claims Nourzai “stole $30 million of investor funds from Zkasino” and said, “Elham Nourzai, if there was a tier list for CT scammers, you would be at the top.”
Read more: Hyperliquid growth driven by leveraged degeneracy, trade sharing
@Derivatives_Ape has denied rug-pulling investors in ZKasino and rejected the rug-pull allegations from Dutch authorities and the crypto exchange Binance. Cointelegraph reported in August 2024 that investors of ZKasino still hadn’t received their tokens back.
Hyperliquid is a controversial crypto exchange that specializes in leveraged memecoin trading that has become popular enough for people to call it a competitor to Binance. However, it’s far from it.
Hyperliquid has allowed influencers to trade away other users’ funds and almost let a trader liquidate its own market-makers.
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