The co-founder and former CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman Fried, has been accused of committing many crimes. Rumors have been circulating recently that he may also be involved in the Bald scam.
Summary
Bald and the connection with the former CEO of FTX
BALD is a token launched on the crypto market in recent days.
It is a token on Base, a semi-unknown blockchain with only $6 million in TVL.
BALD was launched on the DEX LeetSwap and over the weekend it soared an incredible +4,000,000% in just a few hours from the time it was issued until it reached its maximum price , with more than $100 million traded in 24 hours.
Subsequently, its value literally plummeted, so much so that it lost 99% from the highs just recorded.
This was an apparent rugpull, because it turns out that some traders sent millions of dollars via a one-way bridge to Base’s blockchain in the hope of generating very fast and attractive returns, although in reality Base’s blockchain has not yet been officially opened to the public.
Bald is supposed to be a meme coin, but apparently something else might lurk behind its launch.
The layer 2 Base
In theory, Base is supposed to be a layer-2 for Ethereum, but its current version is still only on testnet.Â
Technically it is a bridge that allows token transfer between different networks, but for now it is only available to developers. The mainnet is expected to be launched by the end of the year.
This means that tokens launched on this blockchain should not be handled as if they were secure tokens. But many speculators don’t know this, and they are lured by the illusion of very quick easy gains even at the cost of glossing over such important things.
The BALD rugpull: is FTX behind it?
It is suspected that behind BALD’s pump&dump there was a real scamming scheme.
In fact as $32 million in ETH flowed onto its trading pairs on LeetSwap, the developer who created the token appears to have a few million of them causing prices to drop 9 to 1 cent in a very few hours.
Later the price had climbed back up to over 4 cents, only to plummet again to 0.6 cents.
In other words, in just three hours it lost 90%, only to lose another 30% in the following hours.
The suspicion is that the developer who handled all that ETH knew full well what he was doing. At this point, it is possible to imagine that the first incredible pump was also piloted, or even artfully created.Â
Coinbase and SBF
The fact is that Base is a new blockchain created by Coinbase.
According to some it is possible that BALD’s rugpull is a direct attack on Coinbase.
However, it is worth mentioning again that Base is still in the testnet stage, so it is relatively normal that it may still have some technical problems.
Nevertheless, on-chain data show that the smart contract with which the BALD token was distributed interacted with wallets from Alameda Research, which were an active participant in the early days.
Alameda Research was the speculative arm of the FTX Group, and was a company that was founded by Sam Bankman-Fried himself.
Alameda has dealt with DeFi many times before, particularly within the Terra/Luna ecosystem that imploded in May last year.Â
The speculation that is circulating is that, although there is no firm confirmation yet, SBF may have played some kind of role in this affair.
However, it seems unlikely that SBF, who is currently under house arrest, would be able to have access to the Internet, since in theory this should be heavily controlled and restricted to him.
Suspicion is also circulating because according to some, US law enforcement, and the SEC in particular, may have asked SBF for some sort of help in attacking Coinbase to highlight how easy it is to set up scams on their blockchain.
However, even if SBF himself was not involved, perhaps someone else who had access to those Alameda wallets is in on it. Indeed, Sam Bankman-Fried’s colleagues are also under law enforcement scrutiny, partly because they have pleaded guilty.
However, all this is not enough either to claim that this was an attack on Coinbase or to pin the blame on SBF.
