A rug pull is a type of crypto scam that occurs when a team pumps their project’s token before disappearing with the funds, leaving their investors with a valueless asset.
Rug pulls happen when fraudulent developers create a new crypto token, pump up the price and then pull as much value out of them as possible before abandoning them as their price drops to zero. Rug pulls are a type of exit scam and a decentralized finance (DeFi) exploit.
Before learning how to spot a rug pull in crypto and why crypto rug pulls happen, it helps to understand the three different types of rug pulls.
There are three main types of rug pulls in crypto: liquidity stealing, limiting sell orders and dumping. Various types of pulls Liquidity stealing occurs when token creators withdraw all the coins from the liquidity pool . Doing so removes all the value injected into the currency by investors, driving its price down to zero.
These “liquidity pulls” usually happen in DeFi environments. A DeFi rug pull is the most common exit scam.
Limiting sell orders is a subtle way for a malicious developer to defraud investors. In this situation, the developer codes the tokens so that they’re the only party that is able to sell them.
Developers then wait for retail investors to buy into their new crypto using paired currencies. Paired currencies are two currencies that have been paired for trading, with one against the other. Once there is enough positive price action, they dump their positions and leave a worthless token in their wake.
The Squid Token scam exemplifies rug pulls of this kind.
Dumping occurs when developers quickly sell off their own large supply of tokens. Doing so drives down the price of the coin and leaves remaining investors holding worthless tokens. “Dumping” usually occurs after heavy promotion on social media platforms. The resulting spike and sell-off are known as a Pump-and-Dump Scheme .
Dumping is more of an ethical gray area than other DeFi rug pull scams. In general, it’s not unethical for crypto developers to buy and sell their own currency. “Dumping,” when it comes to DeFi cryptocurrency rug pulls, is a question of how much and how quickly a coin is sold.
Rug pulls come in two forms: hard and soft. Malicious code and liquidity stealing are hard pulls, whereas soft pulls refer to dumping an asset.
Rug pulls can be “hard” or “soft.” Hard rug pulls occur when project developers code malicious backdoors into their token. Malicious backdoors are hidden exploits that have been coded into the project’s smart contract by the developers. The intent to commit fraud is clear from the get-go. Liquidity stealing is also considered a hard pull.
Soft rug pulls refer to token developers dumping their crypto assets quickly. Doing so leaves a severely devalued token in the hands of the remaining crypto investors. While dumping is unethical, it may not be a criminal act in the same way that hard pulls are.
Crypto rug pulls are not always illegal, but they are always unethical.
Hard rug pulls are illegal. Soft rug pulls are unethical, but not always illegal. For example, if a crypto project promises to donate funds but chooses to keep the money instead, that’s unethical but not illegal. Either way, like most fraudulent activities in the crypto industry, both types can be challenging to track and prosecute.
The collapse of the Turkish cryptocurrency exchange Thodex is a prime example of a rug pull in crypto. The $2 billion dollar theft was one of the biggest crypto rug pulls of 2021. It is also one of the largest centralized finance (CeFi) exit scams in history.
Although Turkish police detained 62 people during its investigation of the major scam, the whereabouts of the alleged perpetrator remains unknown.
Other recent examples of protocols that have suffered this type of crypto rug pull include Meerkat Finance , AnubisDAO , Compounder Finance and Uranium Finance .
There are several clear signs that investors can watch out for to protect themselves from rug pulls such as the liquidity not being locked and no external audit having been conducted. The following are six signs users should watch out for to protect their assets from crypto rug pulls. Unknown or anonymous developers Investors should consider the credibility of the people behind new crypto projects. Are the developers and promoters known in the crypto community? What is their track record? If the development team has been doxxed but isn’t well known, do they still appear legitimate and able […]
source Crypto rug pulls: What is a rug pull in crypto and 6 ways to spot it
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