CoinMarketCap-led token airdrops ‘contaminated by fraud,’ crypto venture claims

Two crypto tasks have cried foul play over promotional airdrops carried out by CoinMarketCap (CMC) on their behalf, which they allege was gamed for the good thing about a small group of exploiters.

These promotional airdrops — designed to be distributed to hundreds of wallets to lift consciousness of a crypto venture — ended with the tokens funneling to only a handful of wallets, suggesting potential manipulation of the system.

SATT token drop

Blockchain promoting resolution SaTT alleged to Cointelegraph {that a} promotional airdrop it paid CMC to conduct in Dec. 2022 ended with 84% of the airdropped tokens funneling to only 21 wallets.

The promotion was meant to see 25,000 successful wallets obtain 4,000 SATT every, price $6.30 on the time per CoinGecko knowledge.

Nonetheless, SaTT claimed that shortly after the airdrop was distributed, 20,953 wallets “routinely transferred the tokens to 21 pockets addresses” which then bought off their token holdings days later round Dec. 10, netting round $142,000 for these 21 pockets homeowners.

The sell-off plunged the value of SATT by 70% between the tip of the airdrop on Dec. 1 to when the wallets bought their tokens on Dec. 10.

TokenBot token drop

The same expertise was shared by TokenBot co-founder Shaun Newsum, who informed Cointelegraph that it did an identical CMC-led airdrop of its TKB token on Dec. 9.

Newsum stated CMC offered its 30,000 airdrop winners however he selected to “stagger” the airdrop “simply in case one thing occurs.”

TokenBot despatched out its tokens to a batch of 4,000 winners to start out, however round 3,300 ended up sending the funds to 1 pockets, stated Newsum.

Blockchain knowledge reveals hundreds of TKB transactions flowing to pockets 0x5AF… earlier than initiating a cross-chain swap after which promoting its holdings. BscScan.

Newsum stated round $20,000 was misplaced by TokenBot within the incident and the venture needed to deploy extra liquidity from its treasury.

“Clearly some particular person discovered the way to sport CMC,” he added. “If we had been to have bulk despatched, the entire airdrop would’ve been a whole catastrophe.”

Newsum nevertheless stated he has since obtained an apology from CMC and was informed that it was investigating the airdrop and would return with an up to date winners checklist for the venture.

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In its investigation, SaTT claims to have discovered one other 18 tokens or nonfungible tokens (NFTs) airdrops carried out by CMC since Jul. 2022 that had been additionally allegedly “contaminated by fraud” to the tune of $6.6 million.

This included airdrops for tasks together with TopGoal, OwlDAO and AgeofGods.

SaTT theorized two prospects of how the “fraud” occurred:

“Both a gaggle of hackers injected tons of pretend accounts [into the airdrop on CMC’s website] […] or it was truly an inside job.”

CoinMarketCap responds

Chatting with Cointelegraph, a CMC spokesperson addressed a few of these claims, arguing that not less than 4 of the tasks recognized by SaTT have but to distribute rewards, that means it might be “inconceivable” for them to have confronted “malicious” exercise.

It additionally famous that whereas three tasks, together with SaTT, AgeOfGods and TokenBot have spoken to the CMC group about their issues, it has not obtained any communications from different tasks concerning the alleged points.

The spokesperson nevertheless acknowledged that “bots are a problem that touches almost each trade.”

“The trade has been going through this situation amongst airdrop applications for a while and the fact is that not a single trade has been capable of clear up the bot situation totally.”

“We’re repeatedly working to enhance our programs and providers to restrict this situation and can work carefully with these tasks to seek out options and assist resolve any present points,” the spokesperson added.

CMC added that any claims of bot participation in its airdrops are taken “very significantly” and itis “engaged on resolving every case individually.”

It additionally shared a number of options it has employed to discourage bot participation, equivalent to a CAPTCHA problem and e mail verification necessities for members. It’s additionally creating a two-factor authentication integration.

Cointelegraph contacted TopGoal and OwlDAO for remark however didn’t obtain a response on the time of publicati. AgeofGods couldn’t be reached for remark.