According to crypto influencer VonDoom.eth’s Twitter post, the issuer of memecoins BEN, PSYOP, and LOYAL got into trouble last night.
"The PSYOP, LOYAL, BEN crew is having a rough night. First, someone possibly doxxed Ben.eth, there is a possible exploit placed by PopPunkOnChain (although IDK if this is more of a PSYOP and all according to Vydamo’s post) plus now there is a new FuckBenNFT collection dropping," VonDoom.eth shared with Twitter followers.
While there is little information about the reveal of the identity of the mysterious memecoin maker allegedly involved in rug pull scams, the crypto community on Twitter is more focused on the exploit threat Ben.eth received yesterday.
Read also: BEN token gets support from Bitboy in battle of memecoins
It came after the memecoin issuer's June 1 tweet about LOYAL airdrops. "LOYAL airdrops went out. If you do not see them yet, give it a second refresh. They are there," Ben.eth advised LOYAL investors.
The next day, Ben.eth received a response from Twitter user Harrison, CTEO of smart contract gas optimization auditing firm Pop Punk LLC.
Read also: Investors lose nearly $6.5 million to fake token airdrops since August 2022
"Hey Ben.eth, you've made me suffer through watching you do over 100 Mickey Mouse airdrops using the airdrop contract I wrote. It's only fair that you compensate me with 100 ETH for my pain. I await your response," Harrison tweeted, fuelling great controversy.
Another crypto influencer Vydamo posted an entire Twitter thread on the incident today. "Ben.eth is currently at risk of losing his entire hot wallet holdings (nearly $22 million) if he does not pay a 100 ETH bounty demanded by the developer of Wentokens.xyz within 54 hours," Vydamo said.
Vydamo claims that "PopPunkOnChain [Harrison] currently has Ben’s entire hot wallet hostage because of a transaction Ben signed when he airdropped PSYOP, LOYAL, and BEN tokens to its holders. One day before Ben used the protocol, the deployer called a function 'isUpdateable' to push an update to the contract."
Vydamo also believes that the smart contract will "automatically drain the wallet" if 100 ETH is not sent to the deployer. The author of the thread also claims that the money cannot be moved to another wallet because the funds "are locked" and any transfer transaction "will be rejected from the node."
"The amount of crypto “influencers,” falling for it is very telling," Ben.eth replied to another Twitter user with the nickname Quit, who said that the thread from Vydamo is "satire." Many of Ben.eth’s followers support this opinion on the news, considering it either a joke or an attempt to damage the LOYAL issuer's reputation.
Regardless of whether the news is true or fake, many crypto users agreed that the way their investments are handled by Ben.eth who stores them in a single hot wallet, is a critical vulnerability. Some investors even suspect that Ben.eth may have created fake news about the risks of an exploit to steal the money himself and deceive investors.
Moreover, there seem to be many disappointed investors who are facing constant problems with Ben.eth's memecoin airdrops.
"It doesn’t add up. This afternoon it said I had over 40 million tokens, now it’s saying I only have 6.5 million!! Which is way less money than what I put in. BEN!! RUN ME MY MONEY!!! LOYAL price may have dropped, but why has my token count dropped as well," user Xbwldn tweeted after the LOYAL airdrop.
"Didn’t get mine," "I got it, but I can trade it and the price is tanking. I don’t know what is happening," are just some of the recent complaints from LOYAL investors who have had problems with airdrops.
"Whatever their plan, it was not a "presale" and all who bought in advance only had negative points because of their bad handling. The drop was delayed, then we didn’t receive any detailed drop dates, then it was not possible to claim tokens but to buy them, after that, it was supposed to be to receive the "presale" tokens in several steps (so this was the explanation for the low value in our wallets) BUT then we received the rest some hours later without any announcement in advance," Twitter user Just Team posted the summary of the recent LOYAL airdrop.
Read also: LOYAL investors disappointed by Ben.eth's new token airdrop
The issues with Ben.eth's previous memecoins eventually led to the conflict between the token maker and Mike Kanovitz, the founding partner of civil rights law firm Loevy & Loevy. The lawyer is demanding a refund for cryptocurrency users who suffered losses from PSYOP investments.
Meanwhile, Twitter indeed now has a new account for the FuckBenNFT project that promises an upcoming release of the collection.
