Posted on

GROK Memecoin Faces 40% Drop As Expert Exposes Scammer’s Involvement

Grok (GROK) token, inspired by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence service through X (formerly Twitter), has recently come under scrutiny following explosive growth in market capitalization. 

According to recent reports, Grok zoomed to a staggering $160 million market cap within just eight days of its release. However, reports of alleged scam involvement have overshadowed the token’s rapid ascent.

GROK Meteoric Rise Marred By Scammer Accusations

Grok token prices have soared, doubling within the past 24 hours alone, extending a week-long rally that has seen an astonishing 13,000% increase. The token boasts an impressive 11,000 holders and has witnessed a trading volume of over $60 million over the past 24 hours, according to data from DEXTools.

GROK

However, ZachXBT, a self-proclaimed crypto detective, has raised concerns about the legitimacy of Grok, stating that the token was created by a scammer. ZachXBT has stated that the same X/Twitter account associated with Grok has been linked to at least one other fraudulent scheme. ZachXBT stated:

Not that people in this space will care but GROKERC20 GROK was created by a scammer. Same exact X/Twitter account has been reused for at least one other scam. X/Twitter ID: 1690060301465714692

Satoshi Flipper, another prominent crypto trader on X, echoed this sentiment, labeling Grok as an “effing scam” and emphasizing that Elon Musk did not authorize the token’s launch. Satoshi Flipper said:

This is Grok. $1.9M liquidity and a $137M market cap? What an effing scam. Not only that, it’s completely fraudulent to trade this knowing Elon Musk, the owner of Grok, did not authorize these devs to launch a token. Imagine touching this toxic trash.

Experts from Arkham Intelligence also weighed in, reporting that an on-chain trader sold a significant amount of GROK at nearly 40% slippage, reinforcing the scam allegations made by ZachXBT.

The controversy surrounding Grok has raised concerns within the cryptocurrency community. Critics argue that the token’s market cap, coupled with the lack of authorization from Elon Musk, raises red flags. 

Impressive Turnaround

The token’s market cap has undergone a retracement, now at $108 million, down from its previous value of $160 million. Additionally, the token exhibits a liquidity of $1.83 million. 

GROK

Despite experiencing a substantial slippage of 48%, with its price dropping as low as $0.0056000, the token has remarkably recuperated and is now trading at $0.0108452.

It is yet to be determined whether further reports will surface to shed light on the individuals behind the token’s creation and their objectives, potentially exposing the risk of a rug pull within the cryptocurrency industry. 

However, despite these allegations, the token has attracted significant attention and excitement from investors eager to participate in the potential surge of the next major meme coin, aiming to achieve substantial gains in their investments. As of the time of writing, the Grok official account on X has not made any statements regarding these allegations.

Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com 

Posted on

Crypto Halloween Nightmare: MEME, MEMEPAD, And TITANX Tokens Collapse, Traders Lose 100%

In a chilling development on Halloween Day, the crypto community was hit with disturbing news as PeckShield, a renowned blockchain security company, revealed a series of rug pulls over the past few hours.

Rug pulls, a form of cryptocurrency scam, involve sudden and deliberate value drops in specific tokens, accompanied by the perpetrators swapping the native tokens for Ethereum (ETH). The meme coins affected by the rug pulls were identified as MEME, MEMEPAD, and TITANX.

Multiple Rug Pulls Shake Crypto Market On Halloween

According to PeckShield’s X (formerly Twitter) post, the MEME token on the Ethereum blockchain experienced a jaw-dropping 100% drop in value. The address 0xBd72…5871 was responsible for swapping a staggering 4,854,740,126,240,000 MEME tokens for approximately 43.68 ETH. 

It is important to note that the rug pull token shared the same name as the legitimate MEME token, adding to the confusion.

Similarly, the MEMEPAD token on Ethereum suffered an identical 100% value drop. The address 0xBd72…5871 conducted a swap of 4,854,740,126,240,000 MEMEPAD tokens for around 44.84 ETH. 

Crypto

Once again, the fraudulent crypto rug pull shared the same name as the genuine MEMEPAD token, compounding the deceitful nature of the scam.

Additionally, the TITANX token launched two days ago, October 28, on Ethereum experienced a staggering 100% value decline. 

The address 0xBd72…5871 executed a swap of 4,854,740,126,240,000 TITANX tokens for approximately 46 ETH. Mirroring the previous instances, the rug pull token masqueraded under the same name as the legitimate TITANX crypto token.

Fantom Foundation Funds Vanish

In alarming events, the Fantom (FTM) Foundation finds itself entangled in a harrowing tale of fund drains and swift token swaps. PeckShield has reported two significant incidents involving the Fantom Foundation’s finances, leaving the organization with substantial losses.

The first incident occurred on October 17, 2023, when wallets associated with the Fantom Foundation were drained of approximately $7 million worth of cryptocurrencies, equivalent to around 4,500 ETH.

Additionally, on October 26, the Fantom Foundation faced another devastating event. An unidentified entity, the “Fantom Foundation Drainer,” executed a bold move by swapping a staggering 8,087,377.97 DAI for 4,560.52 ETH. 

The gravity of the situation intensified when the Fantom Foundation Drainer swiftly executed another swap on October 30, converting the 4,560.52 ETH back into approximately 8.3 million DAI within a mere 30 minutes. 

The Fantom Foundation is now faced with the daunting task of investigating the breaches, identifying the culprits, and fortifying its security infrastructure to prevent future incidents. 

Crypto

Despite recent developments, the native token of the Fantom protocol, FTM, is trading at $0.2388, reflecting a 1% increase in the past 24 hours. 

Notably, the token has experienced a substantial surge across various time frames. Presently, it has maintained an upward trend, with gains of over 6% and 30% in the seven-day and fourteen-day periods, respectively. 

Over the year-to-date period, the token has recorded a 5% increase. These figures indicate the token’s positive performance and growth trajectory.

Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com 

Posted on

Blue Chip NFTs 101 – Azuki, A New Kind Of Brand For The Future… And A Scandal

The idea behind Azuki is to mix NFT culture with anime-style drawings, with a global community working together behind the scenes. Which is phenomenal. Azuki defines itself as a “decentralized brand for the metaverse.” This brand’s main product is a collection of 10K anime-style avatars in NFT form. The collection is also called Azuki and at inception was one of the NFT space’s biggest success stories… 

… until admissions and revelations by one of the project’s creators cast a shadow on Azuki as a whole. 

Let’s review the project’s history, its characteristics, and the revelations that changed it all.

Azuki’s Origin Story

The project exists since January 12th, 2022. The team behind Azuki is Chiru Labs, their slogan is “Born in Los Angeles. Building for the metaverse.” Most of the members use pseudonyms and keep their identities private. A few use their real name, like Azuki’s co-creator and illustrator Arnold Tsang from Toronto, Canada. He’s well-know for his participation in “Overwatch,” which Wikipedia describes as “a 2016 team-based multiplayer first-person shooter game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment.”

The community behind it is a key part of the project. On Azuki’s website, they use slogans like “A new kind of brand that we build together” and “A brand for the metaverse. By the community.” Ownership of one of the 10K Azuki NFTs gives the user access to The Garden. A virtual place Azuki promises “starts with exclusive streetwear collabs, NFT drops, live events, and much more that will be revealed over time.”

Azuki is a digital brand. A “decentralized brand of the future.”

At first, it seemed like the NFT collection was going to propel them to instant classic status. The initial success made their name recognizable and sent the collection’s floor price to double digits. At one point, it reached a maximum of 22 ETH. Nowadays, the floor price at Opensea is 7.4 ETH, what happened? Whatever the reason, the Azuki collection gets around. It has moved a total volume of 260.2K ETH in transactions so far.

We Need A Little… Controversy

The turning point for Azuki was a Twitter Space, of all things. On May 10th, crypto influencer Andrew Wang interviewed  Zagabond, one of Azuki’s founders, who just like that revealed that he was part of a few NFT projects that didn’t end well. It almost sounded like they were a rug pull, and people freaked out accordingly. The collection’s floor price started falling and it hasn’t recovered yet. 

It was a mystery at first, but according to Cryptoslate, the projects Zagabond was involved with were:

  • CryptoPhunks, the original CryptoPunk copycat collection. The first collection to receive a DMCA takedown from Larva Labs. Because of that, the CryptoPhunks were delisted from OpenSea and Zagabond gave the project to all the holders in July, 2021.
  • Tendies, a project that failed to capture the NFT culture’s imagination and shut down in the middle of the minting process. 
  • CryptoZunks, a collection that defines itself as “the first Punks to be generated on-chain with randomized attributes. Each Zunk is guaranteed to be unique from any Punk.” Apparently, it failed because of Ethereum’s expensive gas fees.

According to Cryptoslate, “Like the first two projects, this failed one was also a lesson. Zagabond said these three projects taught him that “blindly following the NFT meta doesn’t get you far.” He claims that all the lessons from these projects are now being applied to make Azuki a success.” None of that helped and the collection’s floor price went downhill. 

The question here is, were these projects rug pulls or simple failures without bad intentions? 

ETH price chart for 09/08/2022 on Bitfinex | Source: ETH/USD on TradingView.com
Azuki, Built For The Metaverse

The definition of metaverse in Azuki’s site is controversial, to say the least.

“The metaverse today is where we currently spend most of our time: Discord + Twitter. How do we amplify this experience for Azuki members? How do we distribute the brand to places that have the most attention today? More importantly, where will the metaverse be one year+ from now?”

Is simple social media part of the metaverse? How does Azuki not know where the metaverse will be one year from now? Other blue-chip NFT collections are already building their version, laying their chips on the table. Is Azuki too late? Or are Chiru Labs just quietly developing? According to the company, they’re exploring the possibility of developing a game. “Few teams have the experience and background to build a genuinely great game with mass market appeal and scalability. Though the core team has the experience, it’s a huge endeavor nonetheless.”

The Azuki collection is down, but not out. The team seems to have shaken the stink that Zagabond’s revelations brought, but did so in the middle of a bear market in which the whole NFT market is down. Azuki stopped the bleeding. The question is, can they reclaim and even surpass past glories?

Featured Image: Azuki banner from their site | Charts by TradingView