ZKasino scammer loses $27M as Ethereum price drops

12 hours ago

A wallet linked to the $40 cardinal ZKasino scam mislaid much than $27 cardinal aft a leveraged presumption was liquidated, marking what immoderate successful the crypto assemblage are calling a dose of karmic justice.

ZKasino launched successful April 2024, luring capitalist superior by promising an airdrop of its autochthonal token to users who bridged Ether (ETH) to the platform.

However, alternatively of returning the funds, ZKasino transferred astir $33 million successful idiosyncratic ETH to the staking protocol Lido Finance.

Nearly a twelvemonth later, the wallet down the alleged exploit has been liquidated for $27.1 cardinal aft ETH’s terms declined sharply, according to blockchain analytics level Onchain Lens.

“A scammer gets a dose of karma,” Onchain Lens wrote successful an April 7 X post, adding:

“The ZkCasino scammer, who scammed $40M+, closed its $ETH (20x) presumption connected #Hyperliquid, faced a full nonaccomplishment of $27.1M.”

Following the liquidation, affected users look nary person to recovering their funds.

The liquidation comes aft a play of record-breaking sell-offs successful accepted equity markets that led to a crypto marketplace correction, which saw ETH’s terms autumn to a adjacent two-year debased of $1,480, past seen successful May 2023.

Earlier connected April 7, an unidentified crypto whale was forced to marque a $14 cardinal exigency deposit to debar an implicit $340 cardinal Ether liquidation.

The ZKasino exit scam

After being accused of moving an exit scam, ZKasino said it initiated a 72-hour process to instrumentality funds to investors a period aft transferring the $30 cardinal of idiosyncratic funds to Lido.

“We are present initiating the 2-step span backmost process successful which bridgers tin motion up and span backmost their ETH astatine a 1:1 ratio,” ZKasino said successful a May 28, 2024, Medium post, adding that the squad hasn’t fixed up connected the project.

However, immoderate investors wanting their ETH backmost volition forfeit immoderate allocated ZKAS tokens and the remaining 14 months of ZKAS releases, ZKasino said.

On April 29, 2024, Dutch authorities arrested 1 of the radical suspected to beryllium liable for the “rug pull.” A fewer days later, each bridged ETH was returned to the ZKasino multisig wallet arsenic Derivative Monke publically denied the rug propulsion allegations connected X.

However, ZKasino inactive hasn’t returned the ETH astir a twelvemonth aft the incident.

“Unfortunately, everyone who sent the ZKAS backmost has not heard thing from them yet,” 1 user, who communicated connected the information that his individuality not beryllium revealed, told Cointelegraph successful August 2024.