Benzinga - BALD, a meme coin created to poke fun at Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong’s hairless appearance, suffered an 89.4% drop in value, according to CoinGecko data.
What Happened: The token’s deployer unexpectedly removed $25.6 million in liquidity, leaving investors high and dry, as per blockchain analytics platform Onchain Intrigue.
Rug pulls, a deceptive tactic prevalent in the crypto world, are particularly common within decentralized finance (DeFi) circles. The scheme involves developers launching a seemingly legitimate token, luring investors with promises, only to subsequently withdraw liquidity and vanish without a trace.
Traders were drawn to the platform’s newly launched ecosystem called Base and rushed to purchase new tokens, which were up 30,000% in a single day, using the decentralized exchange LeetSwap. However, today it became apparent that one of the tokens, called Bald, experienced a rug pull.
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Why It Matters: Blockchain watchers pointed to former FTX CEO Sam Bankman–Fried as a potential culprit, despite his current status of house arrest and limited internet access.
Cinneamhain Ventures partner Adam Cochran tweeted, “BALD dev is like 90% SBF or an Alameda person at this point,” pointing out that the same wallet address had been involved in the SushiSwap community years ago.
Bald dev is like 90% SBF or an Alameda person at this point.The early votes on sushi governance are super sus.
When Nomi bailed and community stepped in there weren't tons of us around and SBF was the one posting to snapshot votes… https://t.co/iNbW3HtpHA
— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) July 31, 2023
Alameda or Sam Bankman-Fried did not respond to Benzinga’s request to comment, at the time of publishing.
Price Action: At the time of writing, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) was trading at $28,923 down 1.41% in the last 24 hours, according to Benzinga Pro.
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