{"id":62400,"date":"2023-10-09T07:13:15","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T07:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/egrowonline.com\/?p=62400"},"modified":"2023-10-09T07:13:15","modified_gmt":"2023-10-09T07:13:15","slug":"opensea-unaware-of-any-involvement-of-former-exec-in-60m-rug-pull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/?p=62400","title":{"rendered":"OpenSea \u2018unaware\u2019 of any involvement of former exec in $60M rug pull"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.cointelegraph.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=90,width=840\/https:\/\/s3.cointelegraph.com\/uploads\/2023-10\/57d4e49b-6c97-40c6-a68d-29b2e03503c1.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div data-v-3d3be88a=\"\">\n<p>Nonfungible token (NFT) platform OpenSea says it is unaware of any evidence pointing to a former employee being involved in the infamous AnubisDAO rug pull in 2021 following new accusations on social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In an Oct. 6 thread on X (formerly Twitter), the anonymous account NFT Ethics tagged OpenSea, asking it to respond to accusations that its former head of ventures, Kevin Pawlak, is linked to the pseudonymous identity \u201c0xSisyphus\u201d and was involved in \u201cvarious dubious business dealings.\u201c<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">1\/ Dear <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/opensea?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener\">@OpenSea<\/a>, what do you think of the fact that your Head of Ventures, Kevin Pawlak, has been involved in various very dubious business dealings (e.g. Anubis) and pump &amp; dump schemes under his pseudonymous identity <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/0xSisyphus?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener\">@0xSisyphus<\/a> (&amp; 0xMagellan)? <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/GzIVLJirLE\" rel=\"noopener\">pic.twitter.com\/GzIVLJirLE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NFT Ethics (@NFTethics) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NFTethics\/status\/1710278757817164213?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener\">October 6, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Both NFT Ethics and blockchain analytics account Lookonchain alleged that 0xSisyphus, and thus Pawlak, played a key role in hyping the AnubisDAO project to investors shortly before the project <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/investors-rug-pulled-after-pouring-57m-into-dog-themed-olympusdao-fork\" rel=\"noopener\">transferred the freshly raised funds<\/a> to a series of external wallets.<\/p>\n<p>The thread by NFT Ethics attempted to explain that Pawlak\u2019s alleged role in the AnubisDAO rug pull was premeditated with other developers and laundered the proceeds through the memecoin Pepe (PEPE).<\/p>\n<p>However, an OpenSea spokesperson told Cointelegraph that it was unaware of Pawlak\u2019s involvement in any such activities but\u00a0also noted that Palwak had a \u201climited scope\u201d while working there.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cKevin is a former employee who left the company in June 2023. He had a limited scope while at OpenSea \u2014 where he worked in a non-management position. We have no awareness of his involvement with the projects in question.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cFurthermore, we have no connection to, or information about, the projects in question, as they took place before his time at OpenSea,\u201d said the company representative. <\/p>\n<p>In October 2021, AnubisDAO raised 13,556 Ether (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/ethereum-price\" rel=\"noopener\">ETH<\/a>) \u2014 worth $60 million at the time \u2014 from crypto investors. However, some 20 hours later, the funds were sent to several different wallet addresses, resulting in an instant loss for the investors.<\/p>\n<p>Blockchain sleuth ZachXBT also appeared to throw cold water on the accusations, saying the thread was \u201cone of the most mid-curve\u201d things he\u2019d read.<\/p>\n<p>He added that much of the thread seemed to base many assumptions about 0xSisyphus\u2019 role in the alleged rug pull using \u201cunrelated events without facts.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">That thread is one of the most midcurve things I have read.  They make many assumptions off unrelated events without facts. <\/p>\n<p>FixedFloat does tons in volume and same with the other exchanges mentioned. Here is the source address of the April 2023 FixedFloat insider PEPE buys I\u2026 <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/0kG2M7DNVi\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/t.co\/0kG2M7DNVi<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 ZachXBT (@zachxbt) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/zachxbt\/status\/1707778263517692132?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener\">September 29, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>0xSisyphus is also understood to have once offered a 1,000 ETH bounty to anyone who could identify the wallet address that drained the pool and engaged law enforcement in both the United States and Hong Kong, further raising doubts about the new accusations.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Related: <\/em><\/strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/anubis-dao-rug-pull-money-washes-away-on-tornado-cash\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><em>AnubisDAO\u2019s rug-pulled 13.5K ETH washes away on Tornado Cash<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs Sisyphus at fault for gross negligence for lying about the Anubis team multisig? Absolutely 100%. Probably a civil case possible for victims,\u201d wrote ZachXBT. <\/p>\n<p>ZachXBT noted that negligence, in this case, is very different from stealing money from one\u2019s own project. \u201c[As far as I know,] Sisyphus was the only team member speaking with the [Department of Homeland Security].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou really think they did not look at him first and monitor his activity?\u201d asked ZachXBT.<\/p>\n<p>He also explained that the two actors most likely responsible for the loss of funds during the AnubisDAO scandal were two pseudonymous users known only as \u201cBeerus\u201d and \u201cErsan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Magazine: <\/em><\/strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/nft-collapse-and-monster-egos-feature-in-new-murakami-exhibition\/\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><em>NFT collapse and monster egos feature in new Murakami exhibition<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/opensea-kevin-pawlak-sisyphus-accused-rug-pull\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nonfungible token (NFT) platform OpenSea says it is unaware of any evidence pointing to a former employee being involved in the infamous AnubisDAO rug pull in 2021 following new accusations on social media.\u00a0 In an Oct. 6 thread on X (formerly Twitter), the anonymous account NFT Ethics tagged OpenSea, asking it to respond to accusations [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[38],"tags":[1864,854,8541,2201,4872,4871,18053],"class_list":["post-62400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blockchain","tag-60m","tag-exec","tag-involvement","tag-opensea","tag-pull","tag-rug","tag-unaware"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/57d4e49b-6c97-40c6-a68d-29b2e03503c1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62402,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62400\/revisions\/62402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/62401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}