ZKasino gives users until Friday to claim back ‘rugged’ funds

Crypto gambling project ZKasino has announced a ‘two-step bridge back process’ for users to finally withdraw their share of what was branded, at the time, as a $33 million rug pull.

However, users have only been given a 72-hour window (that’s until 2pm UTC on May 31) in which to ‘sign up’ to withdraw their funds, which are now worth over $40 million in total.

Read more: ZKasino $30M ‘favor’ to users — seamless transition or rug pull?

The original incident was sparked by an April 20 announcement that ETH deposits made as part of a bridge-to-earn rewards program would be converted into the project’s own ZKAS token, as a “favor” to users.

Despite previous assurances that the deposits would be available to withdraw 1:1, the 10,515 ETH had instead been transferred into a multisig address controlled by the team. Nine days later, the funds were sent to three wallets in the form of Lido’s wrapped staked Ether token (wstETH).

The decision to enable users to withdraw their funds comes almost a month after Dutch authorities announced the arrest of “a 26-year-old man who is suspected of fraud, embezzlement, and money laundering” in connection with ZKasino, as well as seizing over €11.4 million ($12.4 million) worth of “various assets.”

The involvement of law enforcement seemingly had an effect on the team, as the funds were returned to the project’s multisig on May 9.

The same day, ZKasino’s pseudonymous Derivatives Monke took to X (formerly Twitter) to “strongly reject” the claims of a rug pull as “completely false and damaging to the ZKasino brand.”

The post points out that the “ETH is safe and secured by ZKasino in the ZKasino Multisig,” but makes no mention of why it had been removed in the meantime.

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