The person who specializes in uncovering fraudulent crypto projects

After a man lost more than $ 8,000 to junk coins, he put together a team to hunt down crypto projects with signs of fraud and warn investors.

* After the post from Khoa Pug, the price of the DBZ coin fell to a record low

Robert Browning, a 52-year-old man from southern Indiana, USA, shares his story with Bloomberg and tells about the process from being a victim of fraud to being a seeker and detecting fraudulent projects.

He once invested in a junk coin called Altex. On July 11th, Browning’s cryptocurrency suddenly depreciated 8,200 USD except for only eighty-six USD.

Robert Browning has put together a team to hunt down fraudulent crypto projects after breaking more than 8,000. had lost USD. Photo: Bloomberg.

“I sat right in that chair and saw the money 8,200 USD transform eighty-six USD. I felt a lump in my throat and couldn’t swallow it. It was the worst, ”Robert Browning tells his story.

Become a hunter

Following the incident, Browning formed a group dedicated to hunting down fraudulent crypto projects called RugSeekers. “We are a professional, careful and experienced team committed to eliminating fraud and corruption from the crypto space,” said the message on the RugSeekers website.

Mr. Browning and his colleagues searched Telegram chat groups for information on suspicious coins or discussed topics on social networks. RugSeekers also allows users to reflect on the website.

The Bloomberg article describes how a group of “coin cops” sniffing around a cryptocurrency called “We Save Moon” noticed anomalies and examined its source code, wallets and price charts to look for signs of fraud.

When reviewing the order on the blockchain, the RugSeekers team found that the developer charges around $ 90 in fees for each transaction. In this way, they gradually “remove” investors’ wallet balances. Photo: Bloomberg.

Browning joins the “We Save Moon” investor chat group on Telegram. He used the alias RobAte25 and started interviewing the MODs (moderators) of the project. Meanwhile, another member of RugSeekers quietly joined in as well, raising questions about how this coin works.

The questions of both people are often not given a clear explanation, instead the MODs encourage the members to keep buying more, increase the coin and use the pinned post in the group.

In the end, after repeatedly asking direct questions about the transparency of the project and posting the work of RugSeekers, they were removed from the Telegram chat group.

Browning posted a warning post on Twitter and received around 4,000 views. However, he does believe that this is just a normal process in the huge cryptocurrency market.

“Wild West” in the digital world

Investors lost in the first half of this year, according to Bloomberg 681 Million dollars for major crypto theft, hacking and fraud. Hacks related to decentralized financial platforms (DeFi) accounted for 54%.

RugSeekers warned on Twitter that crypto projects are showing signs of fraud. Photo: Bloomberg.

In the first 7 months of the year alone, the amount of damage caused by attacks against DeFi has reached 361 Million dollars, almost 2.8 times higher than in 2020 as a whole (129 Million dollars).

That number may seem small by Wall Street standards, but in the emerging world of cryptocurrency, many amateur investors, with all of their accumulated savings, bet that losing money will have a huge impact on their lives.

Meanwhile, U.S. financial regulators are still grappling with large transactions with no proper mechanism for the cryptocurrency market.

In August, US Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Gary Gensler warned that the cryptocurrency market was “fraught with fraud, fraud and abuse” for investor protection.

The country’s authorities have also asked some companies offering DeFi services to explain their activities and add more information.

However, the cases are through SEK Reviewers often need months or even years to come to a result because they are obliged to respect the test subject’s procedural rights.

With limited resources, the regulator is unable to track every fraud in real time, especially in the fast-paced DeFi world.

“At the moment we cannot offer crypto investors adequate protection. To be honest, it’s more like the Wild West right now, “Gary Gensler told Congress in August.

Nguyen Hieu

ZING