Blockchain investigator ZachXBT reported that the Solana (SOL) buying and selling platform Aqua allegedly performed a rug pull, draining 21.77k SOL price $4.65 million after securing endorsements from main ecosystem companions and not too long ago passing safety audits.
Aqua positioned itself as a buying and selling infrastructure designed to democratize entry past “insiders or whales,” claiming to have processed over $90 million in quantity with execution speeds reaching milliseconds.
The platform promised income sharing by way of its AQUA token, which might distribute buying and selling charges to holders through buy-and-burn mechanisms and staking rewards.
Aqua carried out a public sale of their token, sharing an tackle the place traders might ship up SOL and obtain AQUA tokens after launch. In keeping with an announcement, the protocol raised $1 million in half-hour.
A number of endorsement
The undertaking gained credibility by way of partnerships with established Solana entities, together with Meteora, Helius, SYMMIO, and Dialect, in addition to promotion from numerous influencers.
QuillAudits supplied further legitimacy on Aug. 31, congratulating the Aqua group for reaching a “99.7% rating” of their safety evaluation and praising their dedication to safety.
ZachXBT’s investigation revealed that funds had been “break up 4 methods and transferred between middleman addresses earlier than being despatched to a number of prompt exchanges” simply hours earlier than his report was submitted.
The group disabled replies on all X posts following the alleged exit.
Ethos Community CEO Serpin Taxt confirmed the undertaking’s dissolution, stating Aqua had briefly contacted his group about potential collaboration earlier than disappearing. He added that Aqua’s group deleted the messages despatched by way of Telegram.
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‘Liquidity ladder’
The platform launched its token by way of what it referred to as a “Liquidity Ladder” mannequin, marketed as a substitute for conventional presales that might guarantee “deep launch liquidity” and “truthful worth discovery.”
This mechanism was designed to reward early conviction whereas avoiding insider allocations that sometimes profit institutional traders.
Following the alleged rug pull, Aqua revealed a brand new good contract tackle and claimed their Medium account was “unexpectedly suspended,” stopping them from publishing an in depth rationalization.
The group promised to share info by way of different channels however supplied no updates as of press time.
Meteora co-lead Soju addressed the accusations that the protocol helped a rip-off undertaking to achieve traction.
Soju acknowledged:
“Our prerogative can be to help groups utilizing our tech, typically that ends in a superb launch, typically it doesn’t. I personally have put in processes that closely weight this in our favor. Nevertheless, I acknowledge that we might have managed expectations higher and would additional tighten inside processes to scale back this from taking place.”
Regardless of the suspicious transactions of the cash from their presale tackle, there isn’t a formal affirmation as of press time that Aqua carried out a rug pull.
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