Tag Archives: fake

Saudi crown prince impersonators launch fake Saudi Arabia memecoin

Saudi crown prince impersonators launch fake Saudi Arabia memecoin

Scammers impersonating Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched a fraudulent cryptocurrency, capitalizing on the retail frenzy around celebrity-backed memecoins.

Scammers impersonating the crown prince, who is also the prime minister of Saudi Arabia, launched the token to attract capital from unsuspecting investors.

The “Official” Saudi Arabia memecoin (KSA) was announced on Feb. 17, according to an X post by the account “SaudiLawConf,” a fake account impersonating the crown prince.

The first red flag from the token was the absence of any official government communication and a lack of details on the project’s tokenomics or underlying utility.

Shortly after the scam coin was launched, the original owners of the X account, the Saudi Law Conference, confirmed that their X account was hacked by impersonators, according to a Feb. 17 LinkedIn post, which stated:

“The conference management announces that the official conference account in the X platform (@Saudilawconf) has been hacked and that any content currently published through the account does not represent our opinions or official orientations in any way.”

The scam token’s launch came days after the rapid rise and fall of Argentine President Javier Milei-endorsed Libra (LIBRA) token, which lost over 94% of its value within hours after insider wallets cashed out $107 million worth of liquidity from the token, Contelegraph reported on Feb. 15.

To stay safe amid the current wave of memecoin scams, investors need to conduct more “due diligence” about a project’s backing and its tokenomics, according to Anndy Lian, author and intergovernmental blockchain expert. He told Cointelegraph:

“Don’t just throw your cash at something because it’s got a catchy name or claims to be ‘official.’ Check who’s behind the project. If the team is all mysterious or you can’t dig up any real info on them, that’s a red flag waving right in your face.”

“Transparency is key; if they won’t show their faces, they might just be looking to run with your money,” he added.

Memecoins backed by political figures lead to multi-million investor losses

Another significant red flag for investors was that the token contract for the fake Saudi Arabia memecoin was launched onchain on Feb. 10, a week ahead of the announcement, on Solana-based memecoin launchpad Pump.fun.

However, the token failed to attract investor capital, amassing only $7,489 worth of market capitalization since it launched, Pump.fun data shows.

Retail investor appetite for celebrity-endorsed memecoins has been boosted since US President Donald Trump launched his Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin on Jan. 18, followed by First Lady Melania Trump’s Melania Meme (MELANIA) token on Jan. 19.

However, these tokens have underperformed the wider cryptocurrency market so far.

The Trump token is currently down over 76% from its all-time high, while the Melania coin is down over 90%, TradingView data shows.

The Javier Milei-endorsed Libra coin is also down over 92% from its peak price of $4.56 recorded on Feb. 15, shortly before insider wallets caused a $4 billion meltdown for the coin, Dexscreener data shows.

 

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/saudi-prince-impersonators-launch-fake-saudi-arabia-memecoin

 

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
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Scammers launch fake Saudi Crown Prince cryptocurrency

Scammers launch fake Saudi Crown Prince cryptocurrency

Scammers posing as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia, launched a fake cryptocurrency to take advantage of the retail rush around celebrity-endorsed memecoins.

The fraudulent token, called the “Official” Saudi Arabia memecoin (KSA), was falsely announced by the account “SaudiLawConf,” which was later revealed to be a fake account impersonating the crown prince.

The scam was first suspected due to the lack of any official communication from the Saudi government and the absence of details concerning the token’s economics or utility.

The situation escalated when the Saudi Law Conference, the legitimate owners of the hacked account, declared on LinkedIn on February 17 that their account was compromised and that the current content did not represent their views or official stance.

The fake KSA token’s introduction followed the dramatic rise and fall of the Libra (LIBRA) token, which was endorsed by Argentine President Javier Milei. The Libra token plummeted over 94% in value within hours after insiders withdrew approximately $107 million in liquidity, as reported on February 15.

In light of the recent memecoin scams, Anndy Lian, a blockchain expert, emphasized the importance of investor due diligence, advising scrutiny of the project’s team and transparency. Lian warned against investing in projects without clear information about the individuals involved.

The fraudulent Saudi Arabia memecoin attracted little investor interest, with a market capitalization of just $7,489 since its launch, according to data from the memecoin launchpad Pump.fun. It was noted that the token contract for the fake memecoin was created onchain on February 10, a week before its announcement.

The trend of political figure-endorsed memecoins has led to significant losses for investors. For instance, the Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin and Melania Meme (MELANIA) token, launched in January, have underperformed compared to the broader cryptocurrency market.

The TRUMP token has dropped over 76% from its peak, while the MELANIA coin is down more than 90%, as indicated by TradingView data. Similarly, the Libra coin endorsed by Milei has fallen over 92% from its highest value, with Dexscreener showing a significant market downturn following the cash-out by insiders.

 

Source: https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/scammers-launch-fake-saudi-crown-prince-cryptocurrency-93CH-3872523

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
j j j

Roughly 48% of Ethereum NFT trades in October were fake

Roughly 48% of Ethereum NFT trades in October were fake

Traders seeking to artificially inflate the price of collections or earn marketplace trading rewards generated $389 million in wash trades during October.

Global NFT sales in October clocked in at more than $850 million over roughly 3 million total transactions. I looked into NFT wash trades last month and that research got me to look at the numbers more closely.

Footprint Analytics – NFT Monthly Sales

The trigger points for me to say that transactions are becoming more fake are as follows:

  1. Despite bad market conditions, we continue to see a high number of unique buyers and sellers. In October, we had over 1 million unique buyers and sellers. Both buyers and sellers have increased compared to September.
  2. The number of unique buyers and sellers seems to be inconsistent with the growth of sales value and transactions. Around 1 million users contributed more than 4 million sales value in May versus less than 250,000 in October. To me, it seems unlikely to have a growing market demand with less sales value traded.
Footprint Analytics – Sales value vs. Unique users

To look into this further, I spoke with two centralized exchanges that operate NFT marketplaces. The exchanges said that around 80% of new buyers are keeping NFTs in their wallets, rather than selling them. With the market so unfavorable, holding these assets seems to be the sensible move.

So where are all these unique buyers and sellers coming from? I had a word with Footprint Analytics and brought up my points. I realized that the statistics I am looking at are way too big. It involved multiple chains and it is hard to track everything. We agreed to work on only Ethereum-based marketplaces as an example to dive deep into since it is the most popular.

Here are the findings:

According to Footprint Analytics’ filters, wash trading makes up nearly half of all NFT trading volume.

Footprint Analytics – ETH NFT Market Overview (With Wash Trading Filtered)

Traders seeking to artificially inflate the price of collections or earn marketplace trading rewards generated $389 million in wash trades out of October’s total of $758 million in NFT trading volume — bringing the amount of wash trading in the NFT market close to half that of organic trading.  The number of wash trading users accounts for nearly 46% of total users.

Footprint Analytics – Marketplace Market Share Wash Trading Filtered & Without Filtered
Footprint Analytics – NFT Sellers & Buyers Without Wash Trade
Footprint Analytics – NFT Sellers & Buyers

Wash trading is a form of market manipulation where an investor simultaneously sells and buys the same financial instruments to create misleading, artificial activity in the marketplace. It creates enormous dissonance in the NFT industry between what most people imagine NFT trading is i.e., someone buying an NFT for speculation, and the behavior which actually underlies the market — hundreds of insiders transferring NFTs between their own wallets.

There are several indicators to identify suspicious trading activity.

Signals and indicators include:

  1. Overpriced NFT trades with 0% creators fees
  2. Specific NFT IDs that are bought more than a normal amount of times in a day
  3. NFTs bought by the same buyer address in a short period of time

The incentives for wash trading are to earn platform rewards and to create an appearance of value or liquidity for assets. Because there is no way to prevent or discourage wash trading in the NFT market today, people have a hugely misguided picture of the amount of organic, genuine trading activity in the industry.

For example, 81% percent of all trades on X2Y2, one of the top 3 NFT marketplaces, were wash trades according to the filters applied. The main reason for X2Y2 wash trading is volume-based daily trading rewards. The larger the percentage of volume a user contributes to X2Y2, the larger the share of daily trading rewards the user will earn. A similar breakdown can be observed when looking at individual collections. For example, of Dreadfulz’ $1.1 billion in total volume, $1.131 billion was flagged as wash trading.

Footprint Analytics – Marketplace Wash Trading Stats
Footprint Analytics – All Time Top 10 Most Wash Traded Collections

An analyst or writer who does not understand this wash trading dynamic risks grossly misunderstanding the current market. For example, here’s what Business2Community wrote on Oct. 12 about Terraforms by Mathcastles:

“Non-fungible token collections continue showing strong resilience amid the current general crypto market downturn so far this year. Here are some of the top-selling NFT collections this week: 1. Terraforms Reclaim The Top Spot. Terraforms, a non-fungible token (NFT) collection from Mathcastles, has reclaimed the top spot after flipping below our ten top-selling lists last week. Terraforms has a 24-hour sales volume of 1,814 ETH.”

The next collections the article listed were BAYC and CryptoPunks, which have nearly no wash trading. This would give a reader the impression that Terraforms more of a popular collection than those blue chip collections when in reality there were almost no organic trades.

Footprint Analytics – Bored Ape Yacht Club Trading Stats
Footprint Analytics – Cryptopunks Wash Trading Stats
Footprint Analytics – Terraforms-by-mathcastels Wash Trading Stats

By filtering trades for wash trading, traders, analysts and investors can more accurately evaluate NFT assets and the industry. Having accurate datasets and using them are two separate things. My role here is not to whistleblow or break the NFT myths, I am here to share my knowledge and tell my side of the story to everyone.

Using this article, I would like to make a request to analyze CEX NFT marketplaces’ data. Binance or Bybit NFT Marketplace would be ideal.

 

Source: https://cryptoslate.com/roughly-48-of-ethereum-nft-trades-in-october-were-fake/

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
j j j