OpenSea Denies Knowledge of Former Employee's Alleged Role in AnubisDAO Scandal
Summary:
OpenSea, an NFT platform, has denied knowledge of its former employee Kevin Pawlak's alleged involvement in the 2021 AnubisDAO rug pull scandal, following accusations on social media. Various accounts claim that Pawlak, assumed to be behind the pseudonymous identity "0xSisyphus," played a significant role in promoting AnubisDAO to investors, and laundering the proceeds through memecoin Pepe (PEPE). However, OpenSea maintains that Pawlak upheld a "limited scope" role during his tenure.
OpenSea, a platform for nonfungible tokens (NFTs), maintains that it has no knowledge of accusations implicating a past employee in the notorious AnubisDAO rug pull scandal in 2021, despite the recent allegations surfacing on social media. On October 6th, on the thread X, an anonymous account by the name NFT Ethics demanded a response from OpenSea, linking their former head of venture, Kevin Pawlak, to the anonymous identity "0xSisyphus" and his questionable transactions.
NFT Ethics, in conjunction with the blockchain analytics account Lookonchain, asserted that 0xSisyphus, allegedly Pawlak, played an instrumental role in promoting the AnubisDAO scheme to investors. They claim this happened just before the aforementioned project channelled the newly accrued funds into multiple external wallets. NFT Ethics linked Pawlak to the pre-planned AnubisDAO rug pull, allegedly involving other developers, and stated that the proceeds were laundered through Pepe (PEPE), a memecoin.
An OpenSea spokesperson refuted these allegations to Cointelegraph, asserting their unawareness of any such activities involving Pawlak. They further highlighted Pawlak's limited role during his tenure at OpenSea. Notably, Pawlak left OpenSea in June 2023 and held a non-management position there.
AnubisDAO had pulled funds, amounting to 13,556 ETH or $60 million at the time, from cryptocurrency investors in October 2021. The funds were then distributed to several different wallet addresses, leading to an immediate loss for the investors.
A blockchain detective, ZachXBT, seemed to discredit the allegations, challenging the thread's assumptions as baseless. The account also pointed out that many assumptions were grounded on unrelated events without solid evidence.
The user 0xSisyphus reportedly offered a bounty of 1,000 ETH to anyone who could track down the wallet address responsible for draining the pool. The individual also contacted law enforcement agencies in the US and Hong Kong - a fact that could serve to question the newly surfaced allegations.
ZachXBT further alleged that 0xSisyphus was, indeed, culpable for gross negligence with regards to misleading about the Anubis team multisig. However, Zach suggested that such negligence differed significantly from stealing money from one's own project. According to Zach, two anonymous users - "Beerus" and "Ersan" - were most likely responsible for the money lost in the AnubisDAO scandal.
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Published At
10/9/2023 5:54:17 AM
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