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Tesla’s owner and crypto’s most notorious influencer Elon Musk tweeted on the 25th of June his new Shiba Inu will be named Floki, which promptly led to a frantic launch of a myriad of meme tokens exploiting the name.
As expected, scams popped up among these purposeless and ad hoc created coins but nonetheless, some attracted massive attention and funds, such as the Ethereum (ETH) token Floki Inu ($FLOKI), which quickly skyrocketed in value only to leave investors disillusioned and hustled.
Not a dog, but another cat in the bag
Historically, Elon Musk’s tweets moved the market in a big way, resulting in the issuance of a trillion Floki Inus, the price of which was driven by the hype.
My Shiba Inu will be named Floki
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 25, 2021
Equally fast, Floki Inu encountered problems as investors realized there were issues with the contract, eventually raising red flags due to users receiving error messages after withdrawing or selling the meme token bought on decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap.
🚨SCAM DETECTED🚨
⚠️ Floki INU $FLOKI ⚠️
Problem in contract detected : You can buy on #uniswap but you can't sell !! 🍯🍯🍯
Only the owner sells : https://t.co/w9q9xnt802
❌ SCAM ALERT:
0xa06884f35916badb1bf974a30df1accb2cc316cb#Floki $ETH #scam #Crypto #scamalert $SPYON pic.twitter.com/3F4X6nC8IT— SpyonCrypto (@spyoncrypto) June 25, 2021
Nonetheless, the fear of missing out (FOMO) prevailed for many who opted to gamble, despite the project’s scam being exposed, as the scam gets a sequel.
Once a cheater, always a cheater
“In reverse Robin Hood-style the developer was taxing holders 20% on transactions to funnel their funds into his own wallet, holding these funds for ransom and the supply was inflating fast,” the project announced in the name of full disclosure, but that was not the end.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗲: Elon, Floki and his fearless Viking armyhttps://t.co/JAXKNpKSpj
— Floki Inu (@RealFlokiInu) July 6, 2021
This cat-like dog proved to have several lives as the developer team created a new Ethereum contract, Floki Inu V2 while encouraging investors to migrate their tokens.
Then, the second scam unfolded in a classic rug pull fashion as an insider drained the project’s liquidity pool, exiting with 236 Ethereum transferred to Tornado Cash, a privacy tool for concealing the history of Ethereum transactions, while leaving just 0.25 Ether behind, according to Etherscan.
So, the developer I used has rugged the $FLOKI V2 LP funds.
I'm extremely sorry, I really thought I was helping to save this project and my plans were absolutely huge for this.
— Uniswap Detective🕵️ (@UniswapD) July 7, 2021
As developers keep pointing fingers at who framed who on Twitter, the project refuses to die.
I know much drama with $FLOKI already and trust lost is difficult to regain.
For new $FLOKI:
– Ownership will be renounced once airdrop tokens are distributed – no one controls.
– Liq. will be locked for 420 years.
– Audit to be done & posted.
– Multisig on marketing wallet. https://t.co/UV6He5AOQd— Bamidele (@youngprepro) July 7, 2021
If, like a cat, this dog could have seven more lives, judging by the number of its Twitter followers. Full me once shame on you, full me twice shame on me.