A kid made $50k dumping crypto he'd created – then came the backlash(wired.com)
wired.com
A kid made $50k dumping crypto he'd created – then came the backlash
https://www.wired.com/story/memecoin-kid-backlash/
85 comments
I love that we're at the stage of crypto where we are commoditizing rug pulling. Pump.fun is literally the pickaxe store. The creators saw a lot of people making money with rugpulls and thought to themselves: "the real money is in selling the rugs"
A fat middle-schooler used pump.fun to create "Gen-Z Quant" -- this site requires four inputs: coin-name, issuance quantity, animated-gif, deposit of Solana for the tx fee; he then rugged to the tune of $30k and flicked everybody off on the pump.fun's integrated livestream saying "thanks for the bandos" (bando = $1k)
The addendum to the story is that the attention it generated caused degens to ape into 'Gen-Z Quant" pumping its market price where for a time that $30k would have been worth millions... and the rest of the story is still more interesting...
Since it got so much attention, people started doing crazy things on the livestream to pump their coins -- one guy made something along the lines of crime-spree coin and livestreamed himself stealing cars -- promising to continue doing so until he was arrested in order to pump his coin.
This activity caused pump.fun to disable their integrated livestreaming feature.
The story was featured on last week's ( nov 30) Bankless Friday roundup.
The final point I wonder about is -- won't this degen activity ( ~100 coins are created per minute on pump.fun ) -- clog Solana's network -- their major selling point is that they have a huge number of tx/s, but if you fill it with spam ?? what does that mean for the network?
The addendum to the story is that the attention it generated caused degens to ape into 'Gen-Z Quant" pumping its market price where for a time that $30k would have been worth millions... and the rest of the story is still more interesting...
Since it got so much attention, people started doing crazy things on the livestream to pump their coins -- one guy made something along the lines of crime-spree coin and livestreamed himself stealing cars -- promising to continue doing so until he was arrested in order to pump his coin.
This activity caused pump.fun to disable their integrated livestreaming feature.
The story was featured on last week's ( nov 30) Bankless Friday roundup.
The final point I wonder about is -- won't this degen activity ( ~100 coins are created per minute on pump.fun ) -- clog Solana's network -- their major selling point is that they have a huge number of tx/s, but if you fill it with spam ?? what does that mean for the network?
I see words, yet they make no sense. (Not criticising you, but rather me)
If anyone cares to enlighten someone who is very far from that scene: I’d appreciate it massively.
If anyone cares to enlighten someone who is very far from that scene: I’d appreciate it massively.
Translation: A middle school aged kid made a cryptocurrency using a website called pump.fun that lets people create easily create a cryptocurrecny with a few inputs and a Solana wallet. He then pump and dumped that currency and made off with $30,000. This story caused more people try to create pump and dump coins doing more and more absurd things like stealing cars on livestream if people promised to buy their cryptocurrency.
He also then created an "im_sorry" coin on this site, and made a few grand rug-pulling that. Then a "my_dog_lucy" coin for an additional few grand, making $50k worth total.
Kid made 70% of my annual salary with a few days of memes. I made a wrong turn in life somewhere.
I guess you're just not cut out to be a piece of human garbage.
If we have a service commoditizing fraud for middle schoolers to use, I'd say the human garbage is not the middle schoolers who push the fraud button, but those who made the button.
I don’t understand why this is fraud. People just have stupid ideas about the depth and liquidity of the “my dog Lucy” market. I think he was just selling an entertaining live stream monetized somewhat obscurely
A kid made other people give them money for a specious investment based pretty much on the south sea bubble.
They then took the money and cashed out. Some of the other people who had bought in, then made the investment temporarily worth many times more than the original, which the kid who took the money had to watch because they had cashed out. Then it went silly.
Probably a few people made a lot of profit and most people didn't.
Everything about this was vaguely off, criminal and bad, but one person actually made that a feature and was committing other crimes on camera until the website got worried about their liability and shut it down.
Also just words. Some of them are terms of art back to the 18th century and before, rigging investment markets.
They then took the money and cashed out. Some of the other people who had bought in, then made the investment temporarily worth many times more than the original, which the kid who took the money had to watch because they had cashed out. Then it went silly.
Probably a few people made a lot of profit and most people didn't.
Everything about this was vaguely off, criminal and bad, but one person actually made that a feature and was committing other crimes on camera until the website got worried about their liability and shut it down.
Also just words. Some of them are terms of art back to the 18th century and before, rigging investment markets.
Couldn't find any stories on the car theft thing, any link to that outside of a podcast?
This is not about the car theft per se, but its similar:
https://www.ccn.com/news/crypto/pumpfun-memecoin-culture-dan...
This PumpFun dev was shooting out of his window every time his coin pumped https://x.com/AltcoinGordon/status/1860627600097366129
"But troublingly, Solana’s team has been painfully quiet on the matter, and there’s probably a good reason why. As it stands, Pump.fun transactions account for more than half of all monthly transactions on the Solana network."
This PumpFun dev was shooting out of his window every time his coin pumped https://x.com/AltcoinGordon/status/1860627600097366129
"But troublingly, Solana’s team has been painfully quiet on the matter, and there’s probably a good reason why. As it stands, Pump.fun transactions account for more than half of all monthly transactions on the Solana network."
It seems to me like Pump.Fun should just be called RugPull.Fun, and it blows my mind why anyone is naive enough to buy these memecoins.
Because they think they are smarter than everyone else. Everyone knows it's a scam, that's why it's a meme. No one believes they will be the one holding the bag when the music stops.
It’s called the Greater Fool Theory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory
They should buy well established NFTs instead.
or possibly casino chips?
or possibly casino chips?
Indeed. They have no intrinsic value, as far as I can tell.
I think it’s the adrenaline rush that they’re playing on.
I think it’s the adrenaline rush that they’re playing on.
When I hear "intrinsic value", I these days want to talk about what exactly this is.
Cryptocurrencies are an important invention, and it looks like it needs to go through the period of when many don't know what to do and how to deal with it. Reminds me electricity in XIX century.
Cryptocurrencies are an important invention, and it looks like it needs to go through the period of when many don't know what to do and how to deal with it. Reminds me electricity in XIX century.
It’s a novel invention but at this point I still don’t see how it’s anything more than a speculative gamble
I stayed away from bitcoin early on because I didn’t understand the fundamentals. I spent too much time reading about P/E ratios and frankly don’t really see what exactly makes one cryptocurrency more or less valuable than any other, aside from the memes and the hype.
I guess I could have “made” millions simply by the luck of knowing some folk into mining back in 2013 but I still think all this stuff is pretty worthless unless you can find a greater fool to buy your stake
I stayed away from bitcoin early on because I didn’t understand the fundamentals. I spent too much time reading about P/E ratios and frankly don’t really see what exactly makes one cryptocurrency more or less valuable than any other, aside from the memes and the hype.
I guess I could have “made” millions simply by the luck of knowing some folk into mining back in 2013 but I still think all this stuff is pretty worthless unless you can find a greater fool to buy your stake
> Cryptocurrencies are an important invention
I don't think we know that for sure just yet
I don't think we know that for sure just yet
> They have no intrinsic value, ...
Which is the case for pretty much all crypto.
Which is the case for pretty much all crypto.
You are always wishing that there is more people buying after you and more than sellers. Is all
There are probably some clandestine algo traders propping up the volume too.
Relevant / Recent Darknet diaries podcast is all about the mess that pump fun is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8RNcngdMp4
Kids these days, copying what celebrities do.
A lot of people learnd (maybe) something about value.
confederacy of dunces
Report from Decrypt also covered on The Verge weeks ago: https://decrypt.co/292594/this-child-made-30k-rugging-a-sola...
Related:
Newly launched memecoin HAWK crashes from $500M to $60M market cap in 20 mins
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42334116
Newly launched memecoin HAWK crashes from $500M to $60M market cap in 20 mins
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42334116
Apparently someone traded $1.4 million worth of Moo Deng coins for Hawk Tuah coins and got wiped out. None of these words are in the Bible.
https://x.com/bostonrob__/status/1864494571947757839
https://x.com/bostonrob__/status/1864494571947757839
> None of these words are in the Bible.
Exodus 32:1-5
Exodus 32:1-5
Am I hopelessly naive, thinking all of crypto is a complete BS scam that destroys the environment to boot?
"Crypto" like Bitcoin and Monero have legitimate (non scam/non-greed-driven roots) academic roots and solve entirely real non-scam product problems. ETH is academically interesting as a platform, but as far as I've seen has not "solved" any real product problems people care about in a real way at scale that has persisted (I.e. not fads) or that don't actually NEED the concept of a Blockchain. Being able to transact and store value without a central entity solves a myriad of problems, including, but definitely not limited to:
* Sending funds internationally is much much easier, an order of magnitude less expensive, and several orders of magnitude faster than going through the traditional banking system. It's entirely next level and there are plenty of legitimate reasons why people need to send international wires.
* Transacting in legal, but morally divisive areas, where traditional banking/finance might shut down your business just because it doesn't like what you're doing or is scared of the risk. E.g. selling cannabis products, sex industry stuff (porn, sex work), gambling, etc. people may not like some of these businesses and want to impose their own morals to get rid of them, but crypto makes this impossible in ways the traditional banking system can't.
Point is: there is absolutely a toooon of BS scammery in crypto. And many naughty things it can enable. It's the financial Wild West. But to call all crypto a "BS scam" is simply untrue. It would be like calling the entire Internet a BS scam just because of what it enables (plenty of scams, online gambling, porn sites, darknet markets) and the immense energy it consumes. But like the Internet, the technology is fundamentally useful. You've got your blinders on a bit too strongly if you believe otherwise.
* Sending funds internationally is much much easier, an order of magnitude less expensive, and several orders of magnitude faster than going through the traditional banking system. It's entirely next level and there are plenty of legitimate reasons why people need to send international wires.
* Transacting in legal, but morally divisive areas, where traditional banking/finance might shut down your business just because it doesn't like what you're doing or is scared of the risk. E.g. selling cannabis products, sex industry stuff (porn, sex work), gambling, etc. people may not like some of these businesses and want to impose their own morals to get rid of them, but crypto makes this impossible in ways the traditional banking system can't.
Point is: there is absolutely a toooon of BS scammery in crypto. And many naughty things it can enable. It's the financial Wild West. But to call all crypto a "BS scam" is simply untrue. It would be like calling the entire Internet a BS scam just because of what it enables (plenty of scams, online gambling, porn sites, darknet markets) and the immense energy it consumes. But like the Internet, the technology is fundamentally useful. You've got your blinders on a bit too strongly if you believe otherwise.
A person was trying to save his money, which mostly sat in banks in a country which got in a financial turmoil. No external wires were possible. He bought cryptocurrency which sold in another country and put the other currency in a bank in the save haven. He got substantial losses, around 10%, but there was a serious risk was to lose all.
Just as an illustration of a use which - for good or bad - reached the goals of the person.
Just as an illustration of a use which - for good or bad - reached the goals of the person.
That's not the whole story, some of it also has a functionality in facilitating trade of drugs and weapons.
Which also seems to be pretty much dead at this point.
TOR appears to have enough nodes operated by the authorities, with enough notable de-anonymizing exploits that anybody running a market or selling enough gets got
And the ledger isn’t anonymous, and never was. Even using a mixer isn’t really good enough anymore to keep the authorities from tracking bitcoin flows to the point of cash out.
TOR appears to have enough nodes operated by the authorities, with enough notable de-anonymizing exploits that anybody running a market or selling enough gets got
And the ledger isn’t anonymous, and never was. Even using a mixer isn’t really good enough anymore to keep the authorities from tracking bitcoin flows to the point of cash out.
Not sure where you get that from given the number of headlines mentioning cryptocurrencies including BTC and USDT being used in money laundering and crime in general. It looks like the US government has way less control over USD-based stablecoins than it has on the actual USD.
Drug markets are very much not dead.
One of the largest and most popular markets (Archetype) has been running smoothly for almost 4 years at this point. Which operates exclusively on Monero due to its far superior anonymity over Bitcoin.
Most markets have either required Monero or heavily discouraged Bitcoin for quite a while now.
One of the largest and most popular markets (Archetype) has been running smoothly for almost 4 years at this point. Which operates exclusively on Monero due to its far superior anonymity over Bitcoin.
Most markets have either required Monero or heavily discouraged Bitcoin for quite a while now.
Not monero. It is the only useful cryptocurrency in my opinion, and it is easy to understand that it is private digital cash.
You have to define what you mean by "useful"?
Monero's fungibility is excellent, but the transactions-per-second ain't that great right? Also Proof of stake is inherently more sustainable in a resource-constrained world: you don't want to replace banks by something more wasteful thank banks...
For my money's worth, and clearly talking my own book here, the decidedly zero-hype Algorand is the useful crypto at 20k TPS, this is the Visa/Mastercard territory where things get interesting. As for fungibility, it will have to be some democratically controlled thing I think...
Monero's fungibility is excellent, but the transactions-per-second ain't that great right? Also Proof of stake is inherently more sustainable in a resource-constrained world: you don't want to replace banks by something more wasteful thank banks...
For my money's worth, and clearly talking my own book here, the decidedly zero-hype Algorand is the useful crypto at 20k TPS, this is the Visa/Mastercard territory where things get interesting. As for fungibility, it will have to be some democratically controlled thing I think...
You're right about how "useful" needs to be defined. Monero at 30tps and blockchain growth rate is useless for global adoption. Lack of fungibility also makes every other cryptocurrency useless for global adoption.
You're also right that PoS is more sustainable than PoW, but I think this will change your mind: https://old.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/lv5285/alt_take_on_... It did for me. Thankfully since the energy consumption does not scale with the transaction rate, it's not a long term problem I think. Currently, the high energy per transaction stats are only because the adoption is low.
You're also right that PoS is more sustainable than PoW, but I think this will change your mind: https://old.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/lv5285/alt_take_on_... It did for me. Thankfully since the energy consumption does not scale with the transaction rate, it's not a long term problem I think. Currently, the high energy per transaction stats are only because the adoption is low.
Nothing screams intrinsic value like burning enormous amounts of energy just to find a set of bits that happen to hash to a value less than a target value.
But hey at least we proved that we won the race to find said hash before someone else!
But hey at least we proved that we won the race to find said hash before someone else!
I think I've seen ONE decent use of crypto so far: https://www.drips.network/
It doesn't need crypto to work though, does it? Same for polymarket and a few others.
It doesn't strictly need to, but I think it arguably makes the flow of funds simpler particularly as the funds keep dripping into smaller fractions. I'm generally quite bearish on crypto, but I saw this and was like hmmm
You could create pump.fun on non-crypto rails too, but your bank and payment processor would kick you off in a heartbeat.
It’s eerie, right? Feeling like the only sane person in the room in crypto discussions.
Reminds me that picture of a priest, who'd preach to his people, "machines can't think! machines should drive!" . I suspect he was also feeling like the only sane person in the room...
for memecoins, right about the first half but almost all them do not take much to run.
it can be wagered that all the social media airtime spent on them would probably waste more electricity in the process.
it can be wagered that all the social media airtime spent on them would probably waste more electricity in the process.
Not at all.
They mostly don't have environmental impact as long as they're not PoW. Still got all the other problems.
I wonder in what currency the kid actually made that money. Solana tokens I believe. Can they be converted to actual money with which he can pay his college tuition in future?
Well I see it listed on Coinbase (https://www.coinbase.com/price/solana), so I assume that means that US citizens can easily sell them for USD?
Crazy that people are mad at this kid, what did they expect him to do? Seems they paid a fair price for a lesson they needed to learn and signed up for themselves.
Fun site to check from time to time: https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/
https://rekt.news/ is a similar one that is fun to read
So all Wednesday stories about Bitcoin reaching 100k/2T market cap were flagged immediately off frontpage for not being relevant, yet this story is considered interesting content?
I'm sure I'll get down voted, but it's sad that the topic is widely considered off-limits for actual conversation here, except for stories where the stupidest stuff like this is shown. HN is where many folks originally learned about bitcoin because of its extremely niche tech audience at the time.
I'm sure I'll get down voted, but it's sad that the topic is widely considered off-limits for actual conversation here, except for stories where the stupidest stuff like this is shown. HN is where many folks originally learned about bitcoin because of its extremely niche tech audience at the time.
I’ll play devils advocate
Bitcoin hitting some arbitrary new high is not newsworthy or interesting. It’s the same story we’ve read for a decade.
Some kid making 50k exploiting a crypto service with some social engineering via memes is actually hacking and what should HN be about?
Bitcoin hitting some arbitrary new high is not newsworthy or interesting. It’s the same story we’ve read for a decade.
Some kid making 50k exploiting a crypto service with some social engineering via memes is actually hacking and what should HN be about?
Crypto threads are only allowed in HN if there's a good opportunity to shit on crypto.
I jest, but there's a significant number of users here who would agree.
I jest, but there's a significant number of users here who would agree.
Did they get flagged and removed? Or were they just not interesting/newsworthy?
Flagged and removed, within minutes
there has to be legislative precedence already for this scheme, especially if focused on those allowing fiat money to exchange hands in return of memecoins like this.
>pump prevents rugs by making sure that all created tokens are safe.
That's rich.
That's rich.
When people invest in a scam, they 100% deserve to lose all the money they invested.
People should suck it up. They have no one to blame but themselves. I joined a project which was legitimate at first and founders essentially gave up (bribed?) and the project turned into a scam. OK I blame them, I think about taking it to court sometimes but I definitely blame myself too for having trusted them. I wasted 3 years of work on this. I should have seen the warning signs. I wasn't cynical enough.
Later I launched my own project. I barely raised any money at all. But I'm still running it 4 years later. Nobody gives a crap. Nobody thinks this track record matters. I also have a solid 10+ years track record in open source. So f*** them. I love it when people lose their money in scams because they need to be schooled about LIFE and the value of TRUST. We're talking about BARE BASICS for being a functioning adult here. Just look at the people's track records you morons. Verify that the identities match up. Any serious person who values $10K+ WILL MAKE TIME to talk to you one-on-one to earn your investment. You can see their track record at various companies, you can contact colleagues, you can see open source contributions in the public domain. It's your fault and nothing but your fault that you didn't do the due diligence. You were lazy.
If you valued your money, you would have done the research and set the trust bar higher. If you lost money in a cheap scam like this, you didn't deserve to keep that money in the first place.
Don't go crying to big daddy SEC about the big bad wolf who fleeced you clean. Be thankful it didn't eat you alive because that's what should happen to any sheep which ventures into a wolf's lair.
Not saying that the wolf shouldn't be punished... Just saying; we shouldn't protect irrational agents at the expense of rational ones.
People should suck it up. They have no one to blame but themselves. I joined a project which was legitimate at first and founders essentially gave up (bribed?) and the project turned into a scam. OK I blame them, I think about taking it to court sometimes but I definitely blame myself too for having trusted them. I wasted 3 years of work on this. I should have seen the warning signs. I wasn't cynical enough.
Later I launched my own project. I barely raised any money at all. But I'm still running it 4 years later. Nobody gives a crap. Nobody thinks this track record matters. I also have a solid 10+ years track record in open source. So f*** them. I love it when people lose their money in scams because they need to be schooled about LIFE and the value of TRUST. We're talking about BARE BASICS for being a functioning adult here. Just look at the people's track records you morons. Verify that the identities match up. Any serious person who values $10K+ WILL MAKE TIME to talk to you one-on-one to earn your investment. You can see their track record at various companies, you can contact colleagues, you can see open source contributions in the public domain. It's your fault and nothing but your fault that you didn't do the due diligence. You were lazy.
If you valued your money, you would have done the research and set the trust bar higher. If you lost money in a cheap scam like this, you didn't deserve to keep that money in the first place.
Don't go crying to big daddy SEC about the big bad wolf who fleeced you clean. Be thankful it didn't eat you alive because that's what should happen to any sheep which ventures into a wolf's lair.
Not saying that the wolf shouldn't be punished... Just saying; we shouldn't protect irrational agents at the expense of rational ones.
Somehow it feels like even if I did something where I openly say "This is 100% going to be a rugpull", people are still going to put money in it... I need to get on this con...
It seems like the crypto boom times gave a lot of people a lot of stupid money, e.g. that crypto guy who bought that "art" banana for millions (well, single digit millions) and then ate it. There must be a term for this similar to "fuck you money"... maybe "dance, monkeys, dance money"?
Edit to add: which is why I feel like most of the people joining on the memecoin/rugpull bandwagons are either playing with their -- let's call it "monopoly money" that they gained by "playing crypto", or rubes that are actually putting their savings in. The first group will just laugh off a loss, while the second group saw the fist group, got FOMO and will get ruined when the rug gets pulled.
Somehow it's very similar to card-sharking, where the other "victims" help the shark lure the actual victim..
It seems like the crypto boom times gave a lot of people a lot of stupid money, e.g. that crypto guy who bought that "art" banana for millions (well, single digit millions) and then ate it. There must be a term for this similar to "fuck you money"... maybe "dance, monkeys, dance money"?
Edit to add: which is why I feel like most of the people joining on the memecoin/rugpull bandwagons are either playing with their -- let's call it "monopoly money" that they gained by "playing crypto", or rubes that are actually putting their savings in. The first group will just laugh off a loss, while the second group saw the fist group, got FOMO and will get ruined when the rug gets pulled.
Somehow it's very similar to card-sharking, where the other "victims" help the shark lure the actual victim..
Yeah but don't assume that because a lot of obvious scams got funding means that every legitimate project also got funding... It's not like the market 'ran out' of legit projects and people had no choice but to buy scams to meet their insatiable demand for crypto. There were a few high-exposure 'obvious scams' which became viral but they are not the norm.
A huge amount of legit projects (mine included) got barely any attention and struggled to raise $30K in spite of having top-of-the-range tech (at least by several measures). The tech, and even business aspects are often a tiny component compared to the pure hype aspect. This is true for essentially any project that raised any significant sum. All the business or tech-focused projects are dealing in tiny numbers and virtually unknown. It's hard to find them even if you look for them. Total media blackhole.
A huge amount of legit projects (mine included) got barely any attention and struggled to raise $30K in spite of having top-of-the-range tech (at least by several measures). The tech, and even business aspects are often a tiny component compared to the pure hype aspect. This is true for essentially any project that raised any significant sum. All the business or tech-focused projects are dealing in tiny numbers and virtually unknown. It's hard to find them even if you look for them. Total media blackhole.
I can sympathize with this position when the scam is obvious, but what about fraud? It sounds like you were deceived into investing in a scam that was not obvious, at least at first. Ideally regulations and entities like the SEC should prevent that from happening, or at least shut them down before they cause too much damage (better if you get half your money back than none at all).
And even in cases where the scam is obvious (at least to you), I do think there's room to protect less knowledgeable people from themselves, just like there's room to protect addicted gamblers from harming themselves and their families too much.
And overall, for the greater good, maybe it shouldn't be possible to commoditize the creation of new scams, if only so that people would look for better investments (e.g. some that are not negative-sum).
And even in cases where the scam is obvious (at least to you), I do think there's room to protect less knowledgeable people from themselves, just like there's room to protect addicted gamblers from harming themselves and their families too much.
And overall, for the greater good, maybe it shouldn't be possible to commoditize the creation of new scams, if only so that people would look for better investments (e.g. some that are not negative-sum).
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