Blockchain investigator ZachXBT reported that the Solana (SOL) buying and selling platform Aqua allegedly carried out a rug pull, draining 21.77k SOL price $4.65 million after securing endorsements from main ecosystem companions and lately passing safety audits.
Aqua positioned itself as a buying and selling infrastructure designed to democratize entry past “insiders or whales,” claiming to have processed over $90 million in quantity with execution speeds reaching milliseconds.
The platform promised income sharing by means of its AQUA token, which might distribute buying and selling charges to holders by way of buy-and-burn mechanisms and staking rewards.
Aqua carried out a public sale of their token, sharing an deal with the place buyers may ship up SOL and obtain AQUA tokens after launch. Based on an announcement, the protocol raised $1 million in half-hour.
A number of endorsement
The venture gained credibility by means of partnerships with established Solana entities, together with Meteora, Helius, SYMMIO, and Dialect, in addition to promotion from varied influencers.
QuillAudits offered extra legitimacy on Aug. 31, congratulating the Aqua group for attaining a “99.7% rating” of their safety evaluation and praising their dedication to safety.
ZachXBT’s investigation revealed that funds had been “cut up 4 methods and transferred between middleman addresses earlier than being despatched to a number of on the spot exchanges” simply hours earlier than his report was submitted.
The group disabled replies on all X posts following the alleged exit.
Ethos Community CEO Serpin Taxt confirmed the venture’s dissolution, stating Aqua had briefly contacted his group about potential collaboration earlier than disappearing. He added that Aqua’s group deleted the messages despatched by means of Telegram.
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‘Liquidity ladder’
The platform launched its token by means of what it referred to as a “Liquidity Ladder” mannequin, marketed as a substitute for conventional presales that will guarantee “deep launch liquidity” and “honest value discovery.”
This mechanism was designed to reward early conviction whereas avoiding insider allocations that usually profit institutional buyers.
Following the alleged rug pull, Aqua revealed a brand new good contract deal with and claimed their Medium account was “unexpectedly suspended,” stopping them from publishing an in depth clarification.
The group promised to share data by means of various channels however offered no updates as of press time.
Meteora co-lead Soju addressed the accusations that the protocol helped a rip-off venture to achieve traction.
Soju said:
“Our prerogative might be to help groups utilizing our tech, typically that ends in a great launch, typically it doesn’t. I personally have put in processes that closely weight this in our favor. Nonetheless, I acknowledge that we may have managed expectations higher and would additional tighten inner processes to cut back this from taking place.”
Regardless of the suspicious transactions of the cash from their presale deal with, there is no such thing as a formal affirmation as of press time that Aqua carried out a rug pull.
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