On October 28, the Copper Launch platform hosted the AnubisDAO (ANKH) token sale, marketed as a fork of OlympusDAO. A few hours before the sale’s end, all liquidity was withdrawn from the ANKH/ETH pool. The developers were suspected of fraud.
AnubisDAO had no website—only a Discord server and a Twitter account, yet the project attracted investor attention. In less than a day, 13,597 ETH (~$58.78 million at the current rate) was deposited into the ANKH/ETH liquidity pool.
It was expected that ANKH would be distributed after the token sale ended, but a few hours before the sale closed, all liquidity was withdrawn. With no funds left in the pool for swapping, the project’s token price fell to zero. Essentially, what is known as a rug pull occurred.
AnubisDAO is suspected of being rugpulled and transferred 13,556 ETH worth nearly 60 million US dollars. https://t.co/EwtI46xOvU pic.twitter.com/Im5Wmv32lb
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 29, 2021
Community members managed to trace the address where assets stolen from investors ultimately ended up. It was linked to the Twitter account Beerus, which was deleted shortly after the incident.
One tweet with a summary for everything:
— @beerus wallet created the copper launch and is the same wallet that removed the liquidity and sent the eth away
— from what I can see in any telegrams @0xSisyphus and the rest of the team has no control over the wallet
— DCF GOD (@dcfgod) October 29, 2021
Using an alternate account, the purported owner of this account claimed to have fallen victim to a phishing attack. He posted a screenshot of an email from someone impersonating the well-known crypto investor 0xSisyphus. The email attached a PDF file that allegedly could contain malicious code.
recieved this email which seemed to have been the issue
on call with team rn
situation is bad, will address soon pic.twitter.com/pNhGccKW1K
— m1 (@cryptofan777) October 29, 2021
Subsequently, other community members reported receiving such emails. 0xSisyphus stated that he has no involvement in the distribution. Later he added that the emails sent from a Hong Kong IP do not contain malware.
fwiw:
The spoofed email was sent from netgrid from a HK IP (see below)
The PDF is scrambled and doesnt appear to have anything malicious pic.twitter.com/0CKkGKR3fj
— Sisyphus (@0xSisyphus) October 30, 2021
According to 0xSisyphus, the incident may have been caused by an “unreliable team member” of AnubisDAO. He suggested that the latter return the assets to users, keeping 1000 ETH (~$4.32 million) for himself — an amount the crypto investor pledged to add from his own funds.
0xSisyphus also stated that Chainalysis had been brought into the investigation.
Meanwhile, the purported owner of the Twitter account Beerus said he had notified law enforcement authorities and handed over his computer for examination.
Bringing my computer to the police station now — will share updates and proof as it happens. Have reported the whole situation to law enforcement and am still complying with the investigation
— m1 (@cryptofan777) October 30, 2021
In August, the Luna Yield team on the Solana blockchain stole $8 million from investors.
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