Crypto firm MetaMask recently confirmed that it will soon drop its own crypto token $MASK into the wallets of its existing users. After the development, a supposedly fake MetaMask token appeared on the crypto market, which became available for trading on the Uniswap platform. Within a short period of time, this MetaMask token, built on the Ethereum blockchain, has reportedly jumped 2,600 percent. Once the fake tokens worth $1 million (approximately Rs. 7.4 crore) were sold, the sale was closed, raising suspicions of a scam.
The unidentified scammer(s), according to a report by CoinCodeCap, duped some people in anticipation of the launch of the MASK token with their fake offering. The exact number of victims of this scam remains unclear.
The token could only be bought and not sold, which was another reason why doubts about the token being a scam grew.
Some tech enthusiasts posted their personal research on Twitter, which revealed that the fake token gained verified status after scammers used the DeFi tools site DexTools to do so.
So far, DexTools has not commented on its role in not being able to filter out cyber criminals abusing its platform.
Code was injected into the title and description of the token on dextools running the website, causing the token to show a “verified” status. pic.twitter.com/4jjNmFltZB
— coby.eth (@cobynft) December 27, 2021
Really depressing. Dude tries to put a coin 7 times higher than every time. Failed every time. Gets all his power at the last time. Coin was a fake metamask token. Dextools operates. Unsaleable. What you see here is a star going out pic.twitter.com/oDQXIVIuST
— Jeremy (@lindyape) December 27, 2021
The incident classified as a “back pull” scam is also referred to as a “honeypot” trick played by crypto scammers. While honeypot scams target less informed people, back pull scams are when cyber criminals abandon their malicious projects after raising the target amount of capital.
In a recent report, research firm Chainalysis revealed that scams have smuggled more than $7.7 billion (about Rs. 58,697 crore) from crypto investors this year. The most common type of scam was the classic carpet pulling, the report said.
Backslides are common in DeFi because with the right technical knowledge it is cheap and easy to create new tokens on the blockchain and have them listed on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) without code audit.
For example, in November, investors of a new cryptocurrency called the “Squidgame Cash” or “SQUID” inspired by the Netflix series Squid Games were apparently “pulled out” after the token crashed by 99.99 percent overnight.
The scammers are said to have collected about $3.3 million (approximately Rs. 22 crore) with this project. The investigation into the case is still ongoing.
Amid the global crypto expansion, cases of crypto-targeted cybercrime are also increasing.
Earlier in November, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said that cyber crooks are encouraging innocent people to use physical ATMs with cryptocurrencies and digital QR codes to conduct malicious transactions and rob them of their assets.
Recently, Hyderabad Police also warned investors against transferring assets to unknown, unauthorized wallets to avoid getting scammed.
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