SafeMoon is again within the highlight following additional allegations of double-dealing. Nonetheless, the allegations are way more extreme this time. YouTuber Coffeezilla, AKA Stephen Findeisen, accused SafeMoon’s founder, lead dev, and CEO of dipping into firm funds in his newest exposé video.
SafeMoon’s founder is a person recognized solely as Kyle, and little or no is thought about him past his on-line persona. Kyle allegedly copied the code of one other smaller rug pull venture referred to as Bee Token to create SafeMoon.
Within the early days of the venture, SafeMoon was mooning, and its token had exploded in value leading to a peak valuation of $5.75 billion. A loyal fan base fashioned across the venture, and influencers talked about it always. There have been even rumors of a collaboration with Mastercard.
Nonetheless, Findeisen alleges the venture was designed as a rug pull from its inception.
SafeMoon’s locked liquidity pool
Earlier in April, Findeisen posted an exposé on former SafeMoon promoter Ben Phillips and alleged that he had netted over $12 million by pumping and dumping the token.
Rogue influencers are one factor, however Findeisen’s newest put up makes way more damning accusations. This time, Findeisen claims foul play over SafeMoon’s locked liquidity pool, alleging that the pool isn’t locked in any respect.
A liquidity pool is a crowdsourced pool of cryptocurrencies locked in a wise contract. They encompass token pairings used to facilitate trades on a decentralized change (DEX).
Locked liquidity swimming pools imply the venture house owners/builders can not entry the funds within the pool. Locked swimming pools give buyers confidence that these in cost gained’t steal their funds.
Nonetheless, in analyzing SafeMoon’s wallets and blockchain exercise, Findeisen discovered that founder Kyle had been slowly rug pulling funds because the begin.
“The whole quantity of SafeMoon that got here into Kyle’s pockets was 164 trillion tokens. Quick ahead to mid-September to mid-December, this grossed him slightly below $10.3 million.”
In late 2020, a Twitter account referred to as WarOnRugs referred to as out SafeMoon for its shady practices, which gave rise to FUD, inflicting many individuals to query the venture. Nonetheless, the WarOnRugs was discovered to be complicit in a rug pull of their very own which gave SafeMoon an opportunity to rally its group in opposition to the accusations and transfer previous the occasion by having Kyle step down from the venture.
Issues take one other twist
After Kyle stepped apart, Lead Dev Thomas “Papa” Smith took over because the venture’s chief.
The SafeMoon Military hailed him because the SafeMoon’s savior, however in keeping with Findeisen, he too was on the take, albeit craftier.
“When Kyle stole cash he simply took from the liquidity pool. However Papa was totally different, he had a narrative about it, he justified himself by saying he wasn’t rug pulling liquidity, he was transferring the funds, you already know fund migration from a Model 1 liquidity pool to a Model 2.”
SafeMoon migrated to Model 2 round December 2021 and required holders emigrate their wallets to the brand new contract. Failure to take action meant shedding all funds in a 100% tax, which pressured V1 token holders emigrate.
Researchers discovered that Papa had actioned this course of on 18 separate events. In doing so, he took $143 million of liquidity.
“So Thomas withdrew liquidity 18 totally different instances. He truly held on to $143 million price of liquidity. The sum of outgoing SafeMoon transactions was about $100 million. Of that $100 million, $58.9 million went to Bitmart and $8.1 million went to different undisclosed wallets.”
Findeisen goes into additional particulars about SafeMoon’s CEO John Karony copying the Belief pockets code to launch a local pockets; the corporate leaping on tendencies that result in nowhere, an FBI investigation, and lawsuits.
Findeisen additionally accused Karony of stealing from the venture. This time by way of Bitmart funds that ought to have gone into the liquidity pool. As a substitute, Karony acquired these funds in his private pockets. Findeisen alleges Karony transferred $3 million out of the Bitmart funds to Kyle’s pockets.
Karony has refused to touch upon the Bitmart course of. The corporate’s Twitter has not responded to the allegations.