Defi-Projekt Meerkat disappears with 31 million dollars
No time right now?
The Defi project Meerkat Finance, which only started on Thursday on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), surprisingly went offline on Friday – including all deposits.
On Friday, just a day after its launch, Meerkat spread a dire message through his Telegram group. You have been hacked, everything has been stolen and you are very desperate.
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Project disappears without a trace
After that, the makers went to a diving station. The Twitter account is offline, the Website for sale. Binance, the operator of the BSC blockchain, also apparently has no access to the Meerkat developers and asks the community for help:
If you have more information about https://t.co/aGERcVUoMg, please share with us.https://t.co/G29ksXShcl
– Binance Chain Community (@BinanceChain) March 4, 2021
If you have information about Meerkat, please get in touch, according to the tweet. The Binance security team is also investigating the incident.
With the abrupt end of the Defi project, the equivalent of $ 31 million disappeared. With Binance USD 13.96 million (BUSD) and 73,653 Binance Coins (BNB) Meerkat has said goodbye to his vaults.
Strong evidence suggests fraud
The theory of the hack, as Meerkat tried to spread, is considered rather unlikely. US media, on the other hand, consider it far more likely that the Meerkat makers themselves are behind the end of the project. This would mean declaring the departure as a tangible fraud scandal.
This is what on-chain data suggests. This makes it possible to understand that the alleged attackers used the Meerkat developer accounts to make changes to the smart contract and then to empty the vaults. Ultimately, the fact that no contact person for the project can be found also speaks for fraud. Serious is different.
Meerkat finish probably a “rug pull”
There is great outrage in the community. It is now assumed that it is a so-called rug pull. “Rug Pull” means in German translation “to pull the rug from under your feet”. The term refers to cases of fraud that happen so quickly that those affected feel as if the rug has been pulled from under their feet.
Less than an hour after the Telegram report, the Chinese journalist with the Twitter pseudonym Wu Blockchain was the first to express this suspicion:
BSC project Meerkat Finance is suspected of being rug, taking away 13.96 million BUSD, and the other 73,635 BNB. MKAT claimed to be hacked and stole all resources. Currently the project website cannot be opened. This may be the largest fraud project on the binance smart chain. pic.twitter.com/KbdclfDBKA
– Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) March 4, 2021
Binance is obviously uncomfortable with the matter. However, the company points out that its Smart Chain is an open source system on which anyone can run their projects. There is no connection between Binance and individual projects.
Nevertheless, Binance wants to freeze the funds that have disappeared should they appear again in the access area of ​​the crypto exchange.
By the way: We have explained in detail what a Defi project is in this article.
