BALD Rugpull Linked to SBF as Base L2 Suffers Liquidity Issues

The recent meme coin frenzy on Coinbase‘s Layer-2 Base blockchain has been marred by a major rug pull incident. The deployer of the Brian Armstrong-themed Bald (BALD) token unexpectedly removed all liquidity for $BALD, constituting approximately 30% of the entire liquidity on the Base blockchain. This drastic move resulted in a significant crash in $BALD’s market price within a matter of hours.

The meme currency $BALD experienced an astonishing surge, claiming a daily high of $0.093869 with an impressive 30,000% gain in just 13 hours. However, the surge was short-lived, and at the time of publication, $BALD is trading at a meager $0.00628762, as reported by CoinGecko.

CertiK, a blockchain security audit company, promptly issued a slippage alert when the price of $BALD plummeted by 88%. The company also cautioned about multiple compromised liquidity pools on LeetSwap.

Remarkably, the deployer of $BALD executed this disastrous rug pull without even needing to sell any tokens. The rug puller simply manipulated two-sided liquidity by adding and removing it while simultaneously buying $BALD. Adding to the severity of the situation, the deployer had been an influential player in the early days of DeFi.

Despite the swift evaporation of a staggering $68 million in investors’ funds due to this one-day rug pull, the initiator of the scheme managed to profit over $5 million in less than two days.

Speculation has emerged and Samuel Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder of FTX, has found himself at the top of the suspect list.

Blockchain security and analytics firm Nansen identified interactions between the deployer’s wallet and a crypto wallet linked to Alameda Research, the sister company of the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX.

Additionally, some community members noted that the BALD deployer and SBF shared a similar style of speech, adding to the suspicions.

As on-chain detectives of Crypto Twitter delve deeper into the investigation, rumors on the platform have escalated. A prominent whale account made allegations that Samuel Bankman-Fried may have collaborated with Gary Gensler to “prove how fraudulent crypto is” in support of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s case against Coinbase. However, these rumors remain unverified and should be treated with caution until further evidence surfaces.

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