Gemholic Accused of $3.4 Million Rug Pull in zkSync Ecosystem

The team behind the Gemholic project has been accused of disappearing with 921 ETH (approximately $3.4 million at the time of writing), according to The Block.

The publication reports that the rug pull occurred after Gemholic recovered 921 ETH, which had been accidentally locked in a smart contract on the zkSync network in April 2023.

Initially, Gemholic representatives promised to continue developing the project after the funds were returned. However, once the assets were unlocked in June 2024, they were transferred to the Ethereum network, and the project’s social media accounts were deleted.

The founder of the zkMarkets platform, known by the pseudonym NSerec, confirmed the accusations of a Gemholic rug pull. 

Today, $3.5 million was stolen by Gemholic, who for an entire year falsely promised refunds to its investors, only to execute a rug pull after the funds were finaly unlocked. The team has supposedly completed a KYC verification by @SolidProof_io, which has yet to address the…

— 0xMorgosh (@NSerec) June 7, 2024

«The team has supposedly passed a KYC verification by SolidProof, which has yet to comment publicly on the situation, even though every minute counts. This silence is likely an attempt to avoid FUD. The KYC provider must either admit its incompetence in conducting thorough checks or report the fraudsters to the authorities and make a public statement,» he wrote.

NSerec urged those affected by the incident to hold SolidProof accountable if the provider does not resolve the issue.

Previously, the team behind the URF meme coin disappeared with 2400 SOL (~$450,000) raised during the token’s pre-sale. According to a Blockaid report, about 50% of pre-sales in the Solana network were found to be fraudulent.

In April, developers of the blockchain casino ZKasino sent 10,515 ETH worth $33.9 million to the Lido staking protocol instead of returning these funds to users and investors.

In the same month, Dutch authorities arrested a suspect involved in the project’s scam. At the end of May, ZKasino initiated the process of recovering the stolen ETH.