A former Google employee and YouTube blogger with more than 1.1 million subscribers, Patrick Shyu, better known as TechLead, was accused of organizing the Pump & Dump scheme.
On July 1, Shyu launched on the Uniswap decentralized exchange an IDO token called Million (MM), which he then actively promoted on his channel. According to the project’s website, this is a preminted digital asset with a fixed supply of 1 million MM, allegedly backed by the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) at a 1:1 ratio.
The token MM’s creator noted that the token “has no maximum value,” despite its peg to USDC. By July 4, the asset’s price had risen by 3,580%, reaching a peak of $36.87, according to Uniswap Info.
As of writing, MM is trading at $13.93 — a drop of more than 60% from its maximum value.
The surge in price was followed by a drop that led some community members to suspect a Pump & Dump scheme. A user under the handle DCF GOD noted that Shyu had withdrawn liquidity using the same address as for token issuance.
1/ Here’s how @techleadhd is scamming his community, telling them to buy his coin while he dumps on them
This is his address: https://t.co/kMUBjARNwd
You know it’s him because it’s the same wallet that minted the initial 1M $MM
— DCF GOD (@dcfgod) July 4, 2021
The user explained that TechLead “effectively sold without selling,” withdrawing liquidity. According to him, the founder’s sole concern was maintaining USDC collateral at about $1 million. By DCF GOD’s calculations, Shyu earned about $2 million this way.
Okay last tweet since I have folks telling me I don’t know how uniswap works
You can ignore all the liquidity stuff and just compare balances
Techlead start balance:
— 1M $USDC
— 1M $MMTechlead current balance:
— 3M $USDC
— about 113k $MMHe has sold MM and gained $2M
— DCF GOD (@dcfgod) July 5, 2021
Shyu called the thread “absolute FUD”. In his words, this is how liquidity works in Uniswap V3, and there is no way to do it differently if you tried.
The blogger ChainlinkGod.eth 2.0 noted that the founder of Million missed the point of the accusations.
“You created a get rich quick scheme to profit from your followers. You added liquidity when the price was low and pulled it at its peak, profiting from the difference in USDC,” — he wrote.
You’ve completely missed his core point, you’ve created a “get rich quick” scheme so you can dump on your followers, you’ve added liquidity when the price is low and removed it when the price was high and profited the difference in $USDC, you do realize all the data is on-chain?
— ChainLinkGod.eth 2.0 (@ChainLinkGod) July 4, 2021
On his page, Shyu also stated that he is smarter than Vitalik Buterin, who “couldn’t even get into Google”.
Just remember — I’m smarter than Vitalik Buterin. He couldn’t even get into Google.
— TechLead (@techleadhd) July 5, 2021
Later, TechLead published a video in which he responded more fully to the accusations. He said that he did not “pull the rug out” from under investors by withdrawing liquidity. Shyu stressed that MM tokens “should not be considered an investment” — he described the project as a “social experiment”.
“This is a social experiment and pure speculation. For us, it’s a kind of game — we want to see what comes of it, as with Dogecoin,” he said.
#MillionToken — Answering questions and status update.https://t.co/IVrteMHolu pic.twitter.com/EOjg6jSIWd
— TechLead (@techleadhd) July 5, 2021
Earlier, US Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts drew attention to the prevalence of Pump & Dump schemes in the digital asset industry. She called cryptocurrencies ‘a lousy investment’.
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