- Rugpulled memecoin $BALD plummeted 91% in the last 24 hours.
- On-chain sleuths detected a link between the deployer’s wallet & Alameda.
- $BALD acquired $68 million from investors in a day.
The short-lived memecoin frenzy on Coinbase’s Layer-2 Base blockchain is marked with its first massive rugpull. The deployer of the Brian Armstrong-themed Bald (BALD) suddenly removed all liquidity for $BALD, which consisted of around 30% of all liquidity on the Base blockchain. The drastic move saw $BALD’s market price tank within a few hours.
After claiming a daily high of $0.093869 with a persuasive run of 300,000% in just 13 hours, the memecurrency $BALD crumbled to pieces, and at publishing time is now trading at just $0.00617964, according to CoinGecko.
The blockchain security audit company CertiK issued a slippage alert when the price plunge reached 88%, while also warning about multiple liquidity pools compromised on LeetSwap.
On-Chain Sleuths Declare Prime Suspect
According to live on-chain data, the deployer of $BALD didn’t even need to sell any tokens to pull off this disastrous rugpull. The rugpuller simply added and removed two-sided liquidity, while buying $BALD simultaneously. To deepen the blow, the deployer of this sarcastically themed memecoin has been a big player since the early DeFi days.
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While this one-day rugpull managed to evaporate a whooping $68 million of investors’ money, the rugpull initiator has managed to get away with over $5 million in profit in less than two days.
Surprisingly or not, the infamous Samuel Bankman-Fried (SBF), founder of FTX, is at the top of the suspect list.
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Blockchain security & analytics company Nansen identified interaction between the deployer’s wallet and one of the crypto wallets linked to Alameda Research, the sister firm of the now defunct crypto exchange, FTX.
Other members of the community pointed out that the BALD deployer and SBF shared a similar style of speech.
While the meticulous on-chain detectives of Crypto Twitter have detected a link between $BALD and the infamous FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried, rumors on the micro-blogging platform go even further.
One well-known whale account has shared allegations that Samuel Bankman-Fried cooperated with Gary Gensler to “prove how fraudulent crypto is,” supporting the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s case against Coinbase.
On The Flipside
- According to Sam Bankman-Fried’s bail conditions, the fallen crypto mogul’s internet access is restricted to a list of pre-approved websites.
- Crypto market maker Wintermute’s Head of Research Igor Igamberdiev posted a thread on X, tying the deployer’s wallet to Sam Trabucco of Alameda.
Why This Matters
It’s important to study quickly developing rugpull cases to increase blockchain security and safe guard against such scams in the future.
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