Astrology-themed NFT Project Lucky Star Currency Accused of $1 Million Scam Exit
Summary:
The astrology-themed NFT project Lucky Star Currency (LSC) has reportedly conducted a scam exit, seizing over $1 million, as per a blockchain security report by Certik. The illegal action involved withdrawing tokens, which were converted into Binance USD (BUSD) stablecoin, and subsequently transferred to another account. The project primarily targeted the Chinese cryptocurrency market. The alleged scam took place following wide coverage on Chinese platforms Toutiao and Zhihu. The unlawful nature of centralized cryptocurrency exchanges in China has led to an increasing number of scams from Chinese projects, causing users to risk having their funds confiscated.
The Lucky Star Currency (LSC) project based on astrology themes, reportedly conducted a scam exit by seizing over $1 million. This was revealed in an October 9 report by the blockchain security agency, Certik. Using the site's 'deployer account', the 'withdrawToken' feature was initiated on both the 'NFTMerge' and 'AdwardCenter' contracts, effectively withdrawing over $1 million from them in LSC. These collected tokens were later converted to Binance USD (BUSD) stablecoin and transferred to another account.
LSC is a project specifically dealing with NFTs and presumes to be founded by astrologers. It offers an NFT marketplace and an Award Center as part of its contracts.The Chinese cryptocurrency investment community is their primary target audience. The project is endorsed under the handle @AstrAstrol75591 on X, previously known as Twitter, and has a dedicated Telegram channel. However, as of October 9, the project's website and user interface has been shut down.
Prior to the alleged scam, LSC was widely covered in the Chinese news app Toutiao and the Q&A forum Zhihu. Around 02.52 a.m. UTC, over 1.6 million LSC were removed from the Lucky Star Currency's AwardCenter contract by BNB Smart Chain address 0x9Ef72Ee68a7c841986A0C60e0FDbAE4e27446Deb. Subsequently, an extra 1.4 million LSC was withdrawn from the NFTMerge contract belonging to the same project. Following these withdrawals, the assailant exchanged the funds for over $1 million in BUSD via Pancake Swap, before sending them to account 0x23f8c805306Bf27AB8bf3cEbEce4B778acfFd896. For the past 82 days, this account has been receiving BUSD from different sources, leading to the possibility of more than one scam being funneled into this account.
Based on information from Certik, the drained contracts were previously mentioned on Telegram as the project's formal contracts. The data from the blockchain also suggests that the attacker's account is the AwardCenter contract's deployer.
The entity promoting the project asserted to have an office based in Shenzen City, China. It's been noted that scams involving Chinese projects are becoming increasingly common in the Web3 space, particularly as operating a centralized cryptocurrency exchange is illegal in China. Consequently, those who invest in a Chinese protocol with centralized features may face the possibility of their funds being seized. During July, $100 million was lost after the China-based Multichain protocol channelled all user funds into an attacker's account. The team reports that their CEO was taken into custody by police. However victims are still uncertain about what happened to their funds and how they will be compensated.
Published At
10/9/2023 6:30:00 PM
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