Ragpull on the Blast ecosystem – $1.3 million worth of Ethereum lost | CoinDesk JAPAN

• The first lag pull occurred on the Blast ecosystem, with gambling and trading platform RiskOnBlast disappearing after raising over 420 ETH from traders.
• After raising more than $1 million from investors, the anonymous RiskOnBlast team sent about $500,000 to ChangeNow, $360,000 to MEXC, and $187,000 to Bybit.

Over the weekend, the well-funded and much-touted Blast ecosystem sold 420 Ethereum (ETH), currently worth $1.3 million, to retail investors. This is the first case in which a project procured fromexperienced rug pull.

A ragpull is a type of exit scam in which a development team raises funds from investors by selling tokens, then quickly shuts down the project. Blast is an Ethereum Layer 2 project that has raised over $1 billion in funding in the past few months ahead of going live.

RiskOnBlast, one of the participating projects in Blast's Big Bang Competition, is billed as a gambling and trading platform and raised more than $1 million from investors in a seed round last week.

However, all of the team's social media accounts were deleted on February 22nd. The team was anonymous. According to on-chain researcher somaxbt, the apparently stolen funds were sent from over 750 wallets. After that, approximately 500,000 dollars (approximately 75 million yen) was transferred to the swap service ChangeNow, and 360,000 dollars (approximately 54 million yen) was transferred to the crypto asset (virtual currency) exchange MEXC, and 187,000 dollars (approximately 28 million yen) was transferred to the swap service ChangeNow. ) equivalent was sent to Bybit.

1.@Riskonblast rugged 420 ETH worth $1.25 million from 750+ victims.
Scammers lent $497k through @ChangeNOW_io $360k through @MEXC_Official and $187k through @Bybit_Official exchange
contract on L1
0x25f8C342E430C85829Ef5021C0720f0c60969840. pic.twitter.com/XK2w2gTo8X

— SomaXBT (@somaxbt) February 25, 2024

Blast previously posted about the project on its official X account, calling its potential “undeniable.”was saying. Although Blast is not directly involved in what projects on its blockchain do, social mentions can be seen by investors as a sign of legitimacy.

One investor lost more than $12,500 (approximately 1.9 million yen).insistwhile market observers cited a lack of due diligence and irresponsible investment in a project that appeared to be launched overnight.criticized. For some investors, the euphoria was a sign of a bull market. In a bull market, valuation decisions often go awry, causing money to fly around.

Influencers and funds being so greedy about @Blast_L2 ecosystem that they are backing undoxed founders with no track record in the industry.@riskonblast just rugged 500 ETH. Maybe next time perform some decent DD before putting your names as backers.

— CBB0FE (@Cbb0fe) February 25, 2024

On the other hand, Blast is on the 24th.Post to Xannounced that it had selected 47 projects as winners of its developer competition out of 3,000 applications. These teams will be provided with the necessary funding to build an ecosystem on the new blockchain in the coming months.

｜Translation: CoinDesk JAPAN
｜Edited by: Toshihiko Inoue
｜Image: Shutterstock
｜Original text: Blast Ecosystem Sees First Apparent Scam as 'RiskOnBlast' Rug Pulls $1.3M Ether