Crypto Autumn Sorrow: Reviewing the 3 Textbook-Grade Rug Pulls of 2024
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
Crypto Autumn Sorrow: Reviewing the 3 Textbook-Grade Rug Pulls of 2024
Crypto never sleeps, full of endless possibilities.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: OneKey Chinese
Scam projects in the crypto space are as numerous as fish crossing a river, bustling and endless.
According to Immunefi, losses from hacks and rug pulls in the first half of the year alone have reached $473 million.
This article reviews three classic rug pull incidents in 2024—featuring a high-profile project, a prominent exchange, and a celebrity meme coin—each representing a recurring script that appears in nearly every market cycle.
Each one is textbook-level.
🏴☠️ ZKasino’s $33 Million: The Abyss of a Gen-Z Team’s High-Stakes Gamble
You want the interest and tokens offered by the team; the team wants your principal.
ZKasino was once valued at $350 million and hailed as a star project within the ZKsync ecosystem, attracting a large number of investors. Initially launched as a blockchain-based decentralized betting platform, it later expanded its narrative by announcing a "superchain" ambition—to become infrastructure for GameFi. It then launched a staking campaign where users bridged assets to earn $ZKAS tokens, coupled with referral commissions that triggered viral KOL-driven promotion. However, the smart contract was designed from the start to defraud investors (lacking automatic refunds).
Then came ZKasino’s series of audacious moves.
After the staking event ended, multiple community members noticed their ETH had not been refunded. Suspicion grew. Someone later discovered via the Wayback Machine that ZKasino had quietly removed the phrase “Ethereum will be returned and bridgeable back” from its official Bridge Funds page days earlier—an act that sparked widespread concern and accusations. As allegations mounted, ZKasino’s official communication channels gradually shut down. Their Twitter went silent, and they deposited funds into Lido to earn staking rewards—further fueling suspicions of a rug pull. Major exchanges like MEXC canceled plans to list $ZKAS. Yet the team insisted the project would proceed as planned and that ETH would be forcibly converted into the platform token.
Binance’s investigation team used on-chain tracking to identify the individual behind the project’s Binance account and reported this to law enforcement. While Binance has faced criticism this year for listing VC-backed tokens and continuous price declines, when it comes to rug pulls, they do take action. Ultimately, thanks to combined efforts from the community and authorities, a 26-year-old suspect was arrested in the Netherlands, with over €11 million in assets seized—including real estate, luxury vehicles, and various cryptocurrencies. The founder’s Twitter account, Derivatives Monke, last posted on May 28—the day of the announcement offering 1:1 refunds. However, some questioned the extremely short refund window (only 3 days).
This stands as a rare case of a failed rug pull—a victory for retail investors.
🏴☠️ BitForex’s $57 Million: The Downfall Amid Hong Kong’s Web3-Friendly Policies
This “fly-by-night” exchange may not be well known to mainland users, primarily targeting Hong Kong and overseas audiences. Before BitForex, there was already a cautionary tale: Atom Asset (AAX), once among Hong Kong’s largest crypto exchanges, which pulled a rug worth $29.41 million, with its founder fleeing with user funds.
Reports indicate that as early as 2019, BitForex began inflating its liquidity through self-trading across multiple accounts and platforms, recycling funds, and even claiming to be one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges by market value. According to Chainalysis, a third-party crypto crime research platform, BitForex’s actual trading volume in 2019 was only 1/800th of its publicly reported figures. Despite this, BitForex continued attracting retail investors by listing numerous small-cap tokens and leveraging fake liquidity.
BitForex’s exit scam was straightforward—no drama, no tricks—just a swift, precise harvest operation.
Just two days before the collapse, BitForex’s trading volume plummeted, as if all activity vanished overnight. On February 23, 2024, BitForex swiftly withdrew $57 million, shut down its website, and disappeared—all customer support vanished, leaving users unable to access their accounts. According to ZachXBT’s report, the stolen funds included $54 million in TRB, $1 million in ETH, and $250,000 in USDC. Over a week later, Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission finally issued a warning—far too late.
Five months later, BitForex suddenly (yes, completely out of nowhere after total silence) issued a statement on Twitter announcing withdrawals would resume. They claimed their team had been detained by Chinese police, preventing asset access—but offered no explanation for the abnormal outflow of $56 million from their hot wallet.
Two days ago, they tweeted that partial withdrawals had been completed. Due to the massive workload and the need for thorough KYC verification and asset validation, they said withdrawals would continue in batches. In reality, judging by comments, many users still cannot withdraw, with no clarity on when processing will finish.
🏴☠️ VT’s $17 Million: A Pump That Turned Into a Death Spiral
This case truly exemplifies how circumstances create “heroes.” Without the BOME token airdrop frenzy, few could single-handedly rug such a large sum from a major project.
On March 17, riding momentum from his reputation in the Rats inscription community and the BOME-fueled wave of fundraising for meme coins, user VT_BNB launched a project called $Ents, successfully raising 30,000 BNB. He allocated 3,000 BNB to initial liquidity, claiming the rest would be used to stabilize the market—a clear deviation from typical meme coins that fully commit funds to liquidity.
Promising to “rebuild BSC’s glory,” the project attracted significant attention. Early KOL promotions drove some price appreciation, giving retail investors hope of profits. On the afternoon of the 25th, @VT_BNB announced he would deploy 10,000 BNB to pump the price, sharing repeated purchase screenshots and hosting a Twitter Space that drew over 60,000 viewers.
Instead, retail investors were met with a death spiral—a single -75% crash shattered dreams of instant wealth. He then fabricated excuses—OKX intermediaries scammed him, his ex-wife stole his wallet—and eventually deleted his entire Twitter feed. Based overseas, he remained beyond reach of most Chinese-speaking victims. Recently, he has even resurfaced to launch new projects—an act of sheer audacity.
Looking back, this may have been the final straw that broke the Chinese inscription community, further deepening distrust toward Chinese meme coins.
✨ Final Thoughts
Crypto never sleeps, full of endless possibilities.
Yet, in this cycle, the competition among retail investors to profit has visibly intensified, with rug pull projects multiplying exponentially. In the meme coin launch arena, retail traders now must complete PVP (player-versus-player) trades and cash out before the team dumps. Beyond these cyclical rug pull “shows,” the relentless decline of so-called “value-driven” VC tokens is no different from soft rugs. The flip side of decentralization is an unregulated black forest—where hunters outnumber prey.
In every cycle, people debate the direction of value investing and sustainable value loops in crypto. We continue navigating this turbulent landscape. Let these three representative rug pull cases serve as warnings—investors, proceed with caution.
Join TechFlow official community to stay tuned
Telegram:https://t.me/TechFlowDaily
X (Twitter):https://x.com/TechFlowPost
X (Twitter) EN:https://x.com/BlockFlow_News
@OneKeyCN
