According to Crypto Detectives, crypto scammers have been ramping up their efforts to launch fake memecoins over the past two months.
One address in particular initiated "114 memecoin scams" in the past 45 days alone, according to research by blockchain detective ZachXBT. In an April 26 Twitter thread, ZachXBT tracked the movement of the wallet address 0x739c58807B99Cb274f 6FD96B10194202b8EEfB47, noting that "every time the funds stolen from the scam were sent to the exact same deposit address."
“I suspect there are more. These are just the ones sent to that deposit address lol,” ZachXBT added in response to the comment. Independent blockchain sleuths were unable to work out the financial figures of the alleged scam, as the alleged scammers used multip let's go wallets to split the funds.
Memecoins are cryptographic tokens inspired by and built around popular internet jokes or memes, but often offer no serious utility or future use case. Twitter user Lucrafund also did some digging, sharing a screenshot on the thread showing that a "criminal ma stermind" had sent some of the stolen funds to a Coinbase address, essentially giving away a key personal identifier. When asked why ZachXBT believed Coinbase hadn't flagged this activity, the anonymous sleuth said it might be difficult to detect because funds are usually “sent in small a mounts at a time."
On April 27, Twitter user CoinGurruu also posted a similar thread, highlighting the alleged scam wallet address 0xCc16D5E53C1890B2802d5441d23639CAc6cd646F, which allegedly “fired 2-5 memecoin rugs per day for almost 2 years.” "These devs are very busy. Make sure you flag it on Etherscan so you don't stuff their pockets with your money. Absolute insanity," they wrote.
In another new case this week, ZachXBT also appears to have spotted another alleged scammer via a wallet address tattooed on his back. Twitter users NazareAmarga or Gabriel Marques allegedly launched a nefarious-looking memecoin aimed at defrauding holders of the legitimate Nakamigos NFT project.
According to ZachXBT, the wallet address tattooed on Marques, which can be seen through online social media posts, has much to do with the scam, which is said to have netted around $110,000 worth of ether.
