Key Insights
- Blockchain projects ChainAegis and Hotbit exchange executed a rug-pull scam, resulting in a loss of $1.7 million for users.
- Staking platform RichQuack suffered a loss of $254,000, with Hotbit selling 256 trillion QUACK tokens that belonged to PancakeSwap holders.
- Other victims of the scam included BabyDogeCoin and DogelonMars projects, losing a combined $1 million in assets.
Blockchain projects ChainAegis and Hotbit executed a rug-pull scam, depleting user deposits by $1.7 million, SharkTeam analysts reported.
According to security monitoring conducted by blockchain analysis platform SharkTeam, ChainAegis and Hotbit News committed fraud by stealing about $1,700,000 of their users’ assets,” the post reads.
One of the biggest victims is the staking platform RichQuack. As a result of the scam, she lost $254,000. The project team reported that the Hotbit exchange sold 256 trillion QUACK tokens, which belonged to holders on the PancakeSwap crypto exchange. In addition, the company lost about $100,000 of its own USDT and Rich QUACK tokens.
Rich QUACK token is up 10.32% in the last 24 hours and is currently trading at 0.00000000062.
Other victims of the scam were the BabyDogeCoin and DogelonMars projects. Together, they lost $1 million in assets. However, analysts believe that there may be more affected projects. Therefore, SharkTeam advised all partners of ChainAegis and Hotbit News to be on the alert and implement security measures in time.
Markets Xplora has reached out to Hotbit exchange for a comment.
Crypto Investors Lost Millions to Rug Pulls, other scams
Last week, Arbitrum ’s Tier-2 DeFi project Chibi Finance stole $1 million worth of tokens shortly after launch. The developers of the project deployed a malicious contract that allowed them to steal user funds from Chibi smart contracts.
In total, 555 ether (ETH) was withdrawn from the protocol, for a total amount of about $1 million. After the money was withdrawn from the liquidity pools, social networks and the Chibi Finance website also became inactive.
In total, in the first half of 2023, the crypto industry lost $655.61 million from hacks, phishing scams, and rug pulls. In total, the attackers carried out 108 protocol attacks, 110 rag pulls, and a number of phishing scams. As a result, they appropriated $471.43 million, $75.87 million, and $108 million, respectively.
The vast majority of cryptocurrencies lost in the first half of 2023 — 75.6% — were on the Ethereum blockchain. In second place were assets issued on the Binance Smart Chain network.