ZachXBT analyst talks about a scam on the Solana network’s meme token presale

What’s new? An anonymous blockchain researcher under the nickname ZachXBT, known for his publications about hacks and scams in the crypto space, has spiked cases of scams on the presale of meme tokens on the Solana blockchain. At the moment, this way of launching projects is experiencing explosive growth in popularity, with 27 token presales on Solana alone having raised over $122,5 million since March 12.

Source: Twitter.com

What else is known? In one of the presales, investors sent the project’s creator under the nickname @Sartoshi0x 7000 native Solana (SOL) tokens worth over $1,2 million at current prices. The latter, in turn, took 62% of that amount and did not make a full distribution.

In another case, the scammer created a fake account of a well-known crypto user under the nickname @Jared_eth, who is currently conducting his presale, and on his behalf raised 2100 SOL worth over $363 000.

Another user, @Vombatus_eth, raised 13 000 SOL ($2,25 million) in the SORRY token presale before embezzling investor funds.

One of the most sensational presale projects on Solana was SLERF. Within a day after its launch, it overtook all DeFi protocols on Ethereum in terms of trading volume. The creator of the token claimed that he accidentally burned all the investors’ funds, after which the major exchanges decided to donate to the project all the profits received from fees for trading SLERF.

Later, the Solana network started facing overloads and its creator Anatoly Yakovenko called for an end to using the presale model to launch meme tokens in the ecosystem.

Source: Twitter.com

Andrei Grachev, the head of market maker DWF Labs, called presales a “Very risky game” and compared them to the ICO boom in 2017.

Source: Twitter.com

The head of analytics company CryptoQuant, Ki Young Ju, also compared the current situation to the popularity of ICOs and criticized meme tokens because of their harm to the industry.

“It’s frustrating to see billion-dollar-cap memecoins overshadow hardworking teams building legit products to advance this industry. Easy money can’t drive industry-wide progress, as shown by the 2018 ICO burst,” the expert stressed.

Source: Twitter.com

Presale suggests that investors send cryptocurrency to the creator’s address and receive a weighted distribution of tokens after the project is launched. In this case, there is no guarantee that the investor will receive new tokens in exchange for the sent cryptocurrency, which makes presale an extremely popular model for scammers.