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Bitcoin The Almighty Buck

Crypto Platform ARBIX Flagged As a Rugpull, Transfers $10 Million (bleepingcomputer.com) 62

Posted by BeauHD from the exit-scam dept.
Arbix Finance, an audited and supposedly trustworthy yield farming platform, has been flagged as a 'rugpull,' deleting its site, Twitter, and Telegram channel and transferring $10 million worth of deposited cryptocurrency. Bleeping Computer reports: Rugpulls, otherwise known as "exit scams," are when pseudo-anonymous platforms or cryptocurrencies are created twith the ultimate goal of collecting funds for an allegedly legitimate "service" and then disappear with deposited funds. Because decentralized networks are inherently untrustworthy, entities like CertiK attempt to evaluate them through audits that analyze a token's smart contracts for signs of fraud, vulnerabilities, privacy problems, etc. In Arbix's case, CertiK's conducted an audit on November 19th, 2021, whose findings had initially been a reason for users to trust Arbix Finance.

However, today CertiK tweeted that Arbix is now classified as a rugpull after the token's smart contract was detected minting 10 million ARBIX to addresses under the owner's control and then dumping them for Ethereum. The operators of Arbix also moved $10 million in funds deposited by users to "unverified pools," where they were converted to Ethereum. The scammers then transferred the Ethereum to Tornado.cash, which acts as a mixer to make it harder to trace the funds. The funds and their movements are being traced, but the chances of them being recovered are slim at this point.
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Crypto Platform ARBIX Flagged As a Rugpull, Transfers $10 Million More

Crypto Platform ARBIX Flagged As a Rugpull, Transfers $10 Million

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  • No such thing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2022 @08:48PM (#62147215) Journal

    an audited and supposedly trustworthy yield farming platform

    There's no such thing as "trustworthy" in the world of finance. Cryptocurrency even less.

    • Re:No such thing (Score:4, Informative)

      by splutty ( 43475 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2022 @09:07PM (#62147271)

      Aaaand that's why finance is regulated! Unlike "Cryptocurrency".

      "Trust but verify" is pretty much "Distrust and verify and verify again" in the financial world.

  • There is more than crypto to paper trails (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Arethan ( 223197 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2022 @09:00PM (#62147245) Journal

    Apparently this operation had a website and a twitter handle. FBI data subpoena is probably already on the way for those accounts. Running the "money" through a crypto mixer isn't going to be much help when the black coats show up at their door with plyers and a framing hammer.

    Best of luck!

    Btw, this summary has basic spelling errors.
    exist scams => exit scams
    twith => with
    I'm sure your heart is pounding in your chest while you frantically type in the hopes of being the very first to spill the news, but editors should probably edit. /shrug

    • FBI data subpoena is probably already on the way for those accounts.

      I think you have an optimistic view of how much the FBI actually cares.

    • I doubt the FBI would give a shit about it. You are dealing with an unregulated website in a foreign country for what in the end is a relatively small time scam (10 million)

    • Re:There is more than crypto to paper trails (Score:4, Funny)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2022 @10:09PM (#62147425)

      Apparently this operation had a website and a twitter handle.

      And it *still* wasn't legit? Even having both of those things? :-)

    • Apparently this operation had a website and a twitter handle. FBI data subpoena is probably already on the way for those accounts.

      It had a website AND twitter handle? Well that's that then, it'll be easy as fuck for the FBI to trace them. It's not like you can set those up from anywhere in the world with just a few mouse clicks using a service that obfuscates your real location without any checks on your real identity....

      • It had a website AND twitter handle? Well that's that then, it'll be easy as fuck for the FBI to trace them. It's not like you can set those up from anywhere in the world with just a few mouse clicks using a service that obfuscates your real location without any checks on your real identity....

        Well, according to that one clown who posts on every thread here, it's completely impossible to get a Twitter account or an email address or a web host without being FULLY TRACKED. Not that he's completely wrong, perhaps we should try convincing a bunch of Big Ad companies that the people behind this scam are really likely to click on a particular sort of toilet paper ad, and they'll have 'em pinpointed to within 5 meters.

  • In other crypto token news (Score:5, Funny)

    by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2022 @09:06PM (#62147269) Journal

    In related news, last Wednesday there were no multi-million dollar crypto thefts reported for the day. This marks the first time since April of 2019 there has been a day without a rug pull scam or "hack" of an exchange.

    • In that same time period, how many multi-million dollar hard cash thefts were reported? Just curious, since crypto backers keep telling me that fiat is no more legitimate than crypto.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Alwin Henseler ( 640539 )

      In related news, last Wednesday there were no multi-million dollar crypto thefts reported for the day. This marks the first time since April of 2019 there has been a day without a rug pull scam or "hack" of an exchange.

      Sorry about that. Had something planned for Wednesday, but hard disk died just when I was ready to go.

    • last Wednesday there were no multi-million dollar crypto thefts reported for the day.

      I think such an extraordinary claim requires proof. citation please!

  • My wife says more like an "assfuck"
  • Teabagged than sandbagged. At least you still have your stuff after (even if it stinks).

  • Arbix Finance ... has been flagged as a 'rugpull,' deleting its site, Twitter, and Telegram channel and transferring $10 million worth of deposited cryptocurrency.

    At least their crypto-investors, who like sticking it to "the man" by avoiding centralized banking, have the satisfaction of knowing their deposited crypto-funds weren't FDIC insured* like at a bank and they probably won't be getting anything back. I mean, that's something - right?

    (*Obviously that insurance doesn't apply to funds invested in the markets, etc...)

  • Remind me why? (Score:3)

    by evil_aaronm ( 671521 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2022 @10:09PM (#62147427)
    With all of these thefts and scams, why do any reasonable people who aren't out to steal from others still hold cyber currency? If bank owners repeatedly took all of the cash out of their banks and shuttered their doors, people would find banks untrustworthy. You'd think?

    • If bank owners repeatedly took all of the cash out of their banks and shuttered their doors, people would find banks untrustworthy.

      That essentially happened over and over and over, and people didn't trust banks, so we created the FDIC. Now we still don't trust banks, but we trust the FDIC.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Each bank used to issue its own currency, and they had a habit of just shutting down and leaving their depositors in the lurch. Sound familiar?

    • and pretty much all other forms of money laundering, including the state sponsored kind. Can you imagine what Reagan could have done with crypto, vis-a-vis funding friendly South American dictatorships?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jythie ( 914043 )
      when I rubberneck dramas in the various alt-coin communities, the conclusion I usually reach is that they know they are scams, often having lost money in them already, but hold out the hope that if they just get 'in' enough then THEY can be the scammers and get out before the rugpull. So they are out to steal from others, and have been stolen from... they just want their chance to punch down.

  • Yeesh! (Score:5, Funny)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2022 @11:10PM (#62147547) Journal
    What is the world coming to, when you can't just give your money to anonymous people on the internet and trust that it will be safe!!!

  • Object lessons (Score:3)

    by clawsoon ( 748629 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2022 @11:55PM (#62147613)
    I remember the selling point of cryptocurrencies a decade ago being that you can't trust centralized institutions. It seems like every week brings a new object lesson emphasizing precisely that point, but the delightful irony is that every object lesson seems to come from the cryptocurrency world itself.
    • What I am unclear about is whether you really need to use one of these "platforms" at all, vs. just holding your crypto locally? (Except perhaps a specific amount you are currently in the process of exchanging for dollars or goods?)

      • Re:Object lessons (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Jason Earl ( 1894 ) on Thursday January 06, 2022 @03:08AM (#62147851) Homepage Journal

        Without the platforms there is no way to turn your actual money into imaginary money. Back in the day you could just mine the crypto currency of your choice. You took your hard earned money, and you paid for electricity that turned that actual money into heat and great big numbers that (apparently) were special. These days almost no one mines cryptocurrencies. To get into the crypto market you have to be on some sort of platform. If you want to see the huge returns you can't pick one of the nearly legitimate ones either.

        Even worse, absolutely no one buys things with crypto currencies. If you have imaginary money, and you want to turn that imaginary money into goods and services, you have to use one of these platforms to turn your imaginary money into actual money. Once you have real money you can then use this real money purchase things. The people running these platforms probably see this as a feature. They are essentially in the business of taking your actual money, and trading it for some of their imaginary money. This is, unsurprisingly, not what was originally promised. Crypto was originally touted as a decentralized payment system. However, there is almost no real world use of any crypto in this fashion. You can, I have heard, pay to have your personal data unecrypted with bitcoin. I haven't tried this myself, as I am capable of unencrypting my own data. If, however, you find that you have had your data encrypted for you by a professional you might need to transfer some bitcoin to this professional if you want help unencrypting it.

        The reality is that many of these crypto platforms don't even support moving your crypto to a local wallet, taking the whole concept to a completely different level. Not only is the money imaginary, but the crypto part is imaginary as well.

        On the bright side apparently they are currently having a firesale on ARBIX tokens. It is a real opportunity to get a lot of these tokens for very little actual money. In fact, it appears that you might be able to purchase all of the ARBIX tokens for a very minimal amount of actual money. If that is too expensive for you, then you can also simply create your own crypto currency. Apparently even pets can do this.

      • These platforms offer crypto holders the opportunity to earn interest or leverage their holdings.

        Deposit Bitcoin or Ethereum and earn interest on it while at the same time using the coin's value as collateral so you can take out a loan, usually in a USD stable coin. Then use that money to pay off a mortgage, buy a car, or leverage up and buy more crypto. Which you then deposit, raising your total collateral.

        Now you can use the value in your Bitcoin without having to sell it.

        A loan also looks way better fo

        • The only thing these platforms seem to be working at compared to their centralized counterparts is their ability to be used for fraud.
  • This is a classic rug pull scam in the defi space. It has been a reoccurring event with Defi projects. They are still very good defi projects out there but the prevalence of this scam is not going to help defi in the long-running. For those who lost there hard-earned money, it is not all gloomy you can still get back your money though.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by lanmit ( 9220323 )
      Yes, it is quite hard to get back the money your invest in projects like these but it is far from impossible. There are companies that specialize in helping to get your investment back. Like retrieverfunds.com, they are one of the best in helping victims get back their lost investment in a timely manner. You can contact them at enquiries@retrieverfunds.com

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