Blockchain investigator ZachXBT reported that the Solana (SOL) buying and selling platform Aqua allegedly performed a rug pull, draining 21.77k SOL value $4.65 million after securing endorsements from main ecosystem companions and just lately passing safety audits.
Aqua positioned itself as a buying and selling infrastructure designed to democratize entry past “insiders or whales,” claiming to have processed over $90 million in quantity with execution speeds reaching milliseconds.
The platform promised income sharing by its AQUA token, which might distribute buying and selling charges to holders through buy-and-burn mechanisms and staking rewards.
Aqua carried out a public sale of their token, sharing an handle the place traders might ship up SOL and obtain AQUA tokens after launch. Based on an announcement, the protocol raised $1 million in half-hour.
A number of endorsement
The undertaking gained credibility by partnerships with established Solana entities, together with Meteora, Helius, SYMMIO, and Dialect, in addition to promotion from varied influencers.
QuillAudits supplied further legitimacy on Aug. 31, congratulating the Aqua workforce for attaining a “99.7% rating” of their safety evaluation and praising their dedication to safety.
ZachXBT’s investigation revealed that funds have been “cut up 4 methods and transferred between middleman addresses earlier than being despatched to a number of instantaneous exchanges” simply hours earlier than his report was submitted.
The workforce disabled replies on all X posts following the alleged exit.
Ethos Community CEO Serpin Taxt confirmed the undertaking’s dissolution, stating Aqua had briefly contacted his workforce about potential collaboration earlier than disappearing. He added that Aqua’s workforce deleted the messages despatched by Telegram.
‘Liquidity ladder’
The platform launched its token by what it known as a “Liquidity Ladder” mannequin, marketed as an alternative choice to conventional presales that might guarantee “deep launch liquidity” and “honest worth discovery.”
This mechanism was designed to reward early conviction whereas avoiding insider allocations that sometimes profit institutional traders.
Following the alleged rug pull, Aqua printed a brand new sensible contract handle and claimed their Medium account was “unexpectedly suspended,” stopping them from publishing an in depth clarification.
The workforce promised to share data by various channels however supplied no updates as of press time.
Meteora co-lead Soju addressed the accusations that the protocol helped a rip-off undertaking to realize traction.
Soju acknowledged:
“Our prerogative shall be to assist groups utilizing our tech, typically that ends in an excellent launch, typically it doesn’t. I personally have put in processes that closely weight this in our favor. Nonetheless, I acknowledge that we might have managed expectations higher and would additional tighten inner processes to scale back this from taking place.”
Regardless of the suspicious transactions of the cash from their presale handle, there is no such thing as a formal affirmation as of press time that Aqua carried out a rug pull.
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