Prince of Darkness’ Death Sparks Wave of Rug-Pulls on Solana

2 days ago

The decease of the legendary rockstar Ozzy Osbourne, “Prince of Darkness,” connected Tuesday has triggered a frenzy successful the crypto markets. Within hours, opportunistic developers began minting “OZZY” and “RIP Ozzy” tokens crossed the Solana blockchain, hoping to capitalize connected the dense metallic icon’s passing.

Blockchain information reveals astatine slightest 15 Solana-based meme coins bearing Ozzy’s sanction launched successful the past 2 hours alone. Many of these tokens attracted speculative traders with promises of speedy gains, but turned retired to beryllium classical pump-and-dump schemes. In respective cases, developers pulled liquidity from their token pools wrong minutes of launch.

According to on-chain data, astatine slightest 10 of these tokens were confirmed rug pulls, draining an estimated 1,625 SOL from liquidity pools—roughly $325,000 astatine existent marketplace prices. Additional suspected scams from smaller pools could propulsion full capitalist losses to betwixt 1,675 and 1,725 SOL, equivalent to $335,000–$345,000.

This signifier echoes different opportunistic scams, specified arsenic those seen connected Bitcoin Pizza Day erstwhile meme coin shysters profited implicit $200,000 successful rug-pulls.

A study by Solidus Labs claimed that up to 98% of tokens connected Pump.fun were rug pulls oregon pump and dump schemes, a assertion that the task refuted by saying Solidus "lacks a basal knowing of memecoins."

"98% of memecoins - conscionable similar NFTs, tweets, IG posts, trading cards, and astir creation - are worthy small successful the agelong run. That’s precisely the point. What IS important is the availability of a functioning marketplace connecting motivated buyers and sellers AND the underlying taste look to which the marketplace attributes oregon assigns worth implicit time. That's wherever the magic happens and wherever we larn what’s genuinely valuable," Pump.fun spokesperson Troy Gravitt told CoinDesk successful May.

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