Hotlist: ERC-404 Project Exposed for Involvement in Rug Pulls, Is the Founder of the Security Company Also Participating in the Scam?

Hotlist: ERC-404 Project Exposed for Involvement in Rug Pulls, Is the Founder of the Security Company Also Participating in the Scam?

Hotlist: ERC-404 Project Exposed for Involvement in Rug Pulls, Is the Founder of the Security Company Also Participating in the Scam?

Author: shushu, BlockBeats

In addition to being cautious about market manipulation, it is also important to identify habitual offenders in the rug market.
This morning, the 404 ERROR project, which ranked sixth on the hot list, experienced a rapid price drop after reaching $13,629 in a short period of time. As of the time of writing, the price has dropped tenfold to below $1,350.

Being exposed upon launch
ERROR is an ERC-404 token deployed by Serpent. On March 1st, Serpent announced the deployment details of ERROR on social media, stating that there were only 404 tokens in total. This morning, Serpent tweeted that ERROR had gone live. However, just two hours after going live, it was exposed by blockchain detectives as a scam.

Currently, ERROR’s official Twitter account has been closed. Let’s take a look at how the blockchain detectives exposed this scam.
At 7:59 AM, half an hour after ERROR went live, Twitter user ManaMoon (@ManaMoonNFT) tweeted that the fake contract of ERROR had been deployed with the same verification and unique functions “before” the actual contract deployment.

Then, blockchain detective ZachXBT tweeted at 8:47 AM, stating that the deployer of ERROR injected $1.3 million into Ethereum through a stake, and this money came from the funds obtained from the previously rug-pulled FCKIT meme coin presale initiated by someone named Eskyy.

From the funding chain shown in the image above, it can be seen that the deployment address of FCKIT meme coin transferred 200 ETH to an address starting with 0xccb9, and this money eventually flowed into the ERROR deployment address.
FCKIT went live at the end of May 2023, but the founder’s Twitter account has been deactivated, and FCKIT cannot be found.

The deployer of ERROR, Serpent, used to be the founder of a security company. Previously, his titles were founder of Discord and the encrypted threat mitigation system Sentinel, as well as co-founder of DAPE. He used to disclose hacker attacks and fraud alerts on social media.
On February 25th, Serpent tweeted a warm-up tweet for ERROR with the message “Turn on tweet notifications.” In a previous tweet, Serpent retweeted a fraud case he exposed in 2022, titled “Analyzing how scammers stole 14 BAYC worth over 852 ETH through a month-long social engineering fraud.” It must be said that Serpent also understands social engineering.

During Serpent’s operation of Sentinel, it was also involved in deception controversies. When a user questioned how to communicate with real hackers, Serpent was promoting his security product. Currently, the Sentinel Twitter account has been deactivated.
Although we cannot determine whether Serpent is Eskyy, the deployer of FCKIT, through the Twitter account, it is interesting to note that Serpent also tweeted in a similar style before the launch of FCKIT, saying “Leave your wallet address, you will thank me.”

With the bull market approaching, it is important to be cautious and identify risks when participating in various new projects. Going all-in is not wisdom, but investing in safe projects is a form of wisdom.
This article is authorized and reprinted from BlockBeats.