Rug Pull: Safereum Developers Accused of $1.27 Million Exit Scam

Crypto project Safereum is facing serious allegations after its developers reportedly conducted a ‘rug pull’, draining user funds from the platform and crashing the price of its native token.

Keypoints

• The developers of the Safereum crypto project are accused of conducting a “rug pull”, suddenly selling off large amounts of the native SAFEREUM token.
• This caused the price of SAFEREUM to plunge over 90%, from $0.000014 down to $0.0000008.
• The developers allegedly unlocked and dumped over 600 Ether (about $1.27 million) worth of SAFEREUM tokens.
• The funds came partly from a recent $600,000 fundraising event for a related token called Safepad.
• Blockchain security firms like CertiK analyzed the transactions and confirmed the suspicious activity.
• The official Safereum account on Twitter was also deleted after the incident.
• Influencers had promoted Safereum extensively on social media prior to the rug pull.
• This appears to be an exit scam where the developers abruptly drained funds and disappeared after promoting the project.

According to analysis by firms like CertiK, the Safereum developers unlocked and sold off over 600 Ether worth of SAFEREUM tokens, amounting to approximately $1.27 million at current prices. This massive dumping of tokens caused the SAFEREUM price to plunge over 90% within hours.

#CertiKSkynetAlert ????

We can confirm that @Safereumio has conducted an exit scam for ~$1.3m

Eth: 0xb504035a11E672e12a099F32B1672b9C4a78b22f

safereum.eth unlocked Safereum tokens and sold. Additionally ~$597k was raised for the project’s SAFEPAD token.https://t.co/aAxjcEmdcH

— CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) October 23, 2023

The suspicious transactions occurred just hours after Safereum concluded a fundraising event for its related token Safepad, raking in $600,000 from users. The abrupt draining of liquidity and disappearance of its social media presence point to an exit scam by its developers.

Safereum had promoted itself as a meme-based crypto project with a focus on security. The project’s official Twitter account and Telegram channel have gone silent since the incident.

Several crypto influencers on Twitter had been promoting Safereum extensively prior to its launch, which helped attract unsuspecting users. Critics have called out these promoters for failing to conduct proper due diligence.

It seems the influencer ProTheDoge is back at it promoting scams as an official partner of the project.

This time it was Safereum which just rug pulled with 730+ ETH ($1.2M).

0x67c8423a7709aDB8ED31c04DcbB0C161637b807F pic.twitter.com/o5qi9rmC3e

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) October 23, 2023

This appears to be yet another cautionary tale in the risky decentralized finance (DeFi) space. Users are advised to exercise extreme caution when dealing with newer DeFi projects with anonymous teams.

Regulators may need to pay closer attention to these apparent scams promoted on social media to uninformed retail investors. For now, Safereum users have little recourse to recover their lost funds.

This rug pull exit scam adds to the increasing number of DeFi frauds reported in 2022. The crypto community is left wondering if better solutions can emerge to make the space safer for average users.