Vitalik Buterin addresses ZKasino’s misuse of ‘zero-knowledge’ in $33M scam

2 weeks ago

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the issues with ZKasino were grounds that the word “Zero-Knowledge (ZK)” has gained capable prominence successful the manufacture to pull misuse by fraudulent actors.

Buterin’s remark followed revelations that the blockchain-based gambling level rugged its users — resulting successful the nonaccomplishment of astir $33 cardinal worthy of Ethereum (ETH).

According to Buterin:

“There is thing “ZK” astir ZKasino but that it lives connected zksync, correct? I conjecture we person to adapt; adjacent “ZK” is present a mainstream-enough buzzword that full-on scammers are adopting it.”

Remarkably, the task has continued posting connected its authoritative relationship connected the societal media level X portion ignoring assemblage concerns.

ZKasino rugpull

On April 21, concerns astir ZKasino emerged erstwhile assemblage members noticed the removal of a erstwhile committedness to refund implicit 10,500 bridged Ethereum utilized for ZKAS token farming.

Subsequently, on-chain data revealed that the institution had placed users’ ETH into the Ethereum-based liquid staking protocol, Lido.

In their statement, ZKasino’s squad asserted they acted successful the community’s involvement by converting each bridged ETH to ZKAS astatine a discounted complaint of $0.055, taxable to a 15-month vesting schedule.

This mentation triggered wide condemnation and scrutiny from the crypto industry.

Crypto sleuth ZachXBT highlighted the dubious past of ZKasino laminitis Ildar Elham, pointing retired past instances of non-payment of debts, delayed giveaway announcements, evasion of stake payments, and nonaccomplishment to reimburse users pursuing an interior phishing attack.

Furthermore, crypto developer Cygaar alleged that ZKasino’s blockchain was an Arbitrum Nitro concatenation deployed successful 2 minutes. He added that the concatenation lacked zero-knowledge exertion oregon EigenDA, contrary to the project’s claims.

Investors disavow

Following caller events, galore investors and supporters of ZKasino person distanced themselves from the project.

MEXC, a salient speech protagonist of the platform, canceled its planned listing for the ZKAS token. MEXC had participated successful the protocol’s Series A backing round.

Additionally, task superior steadfast Big Brain said ZKasino “appears to beryllium fraudulent” and clarified that it had ne'er invested successful the project. It added:

“We person ne'er invested successful ZKasino but were offered a pro-rata token organisation that we person not received and volition not opt to receive.”

The station Vitalik Buterin addresses ZKasino’s misuse of ‘zero-knowledge’ successful $33M scam appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.

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