Morning,

Let's see what lovely gifts yesterday's scammers have left on the doorstep...

Just finished writing a new batch of detection rules.

Findings

The most popular complex hard scams tend to be:

1. The delayed honeypot + liquidity drainer combo.

2. A delayed honeypot and/or hidden mint using the increasingly popular external contract setup.

Aside from those, the standard 30 day liquidity lock + delayed honeypot combo, then a version of the Preloaded CA that's been modified to include hidden mint logic.

As always, to avoid these hard scams (if not auto-detected), you'll either need to possess coding ability, or have a friendly developer on-call that can quickly check the verified contract source code for exploits.

Right, time to compile some scammer evidence for submission in the real world.

Stay safe 🙏

Quick tip: never trust a renounce.

"...you'll either need to possess coding ability, or have a friendly developer on-call that can quickly check the verified contract source code for exploits"

Good read:

https://medium.com/@BoredSpectator/exposing-paulys-finest-grifts-71932cb86f0e

Evening all,

Hope you're all experiencing a well-deserved, relaxing Sunday.

I've been looking through numerous price charts of tokens using the greedily configured version of the Preloaded CA mechanism, and the results are disturbingly clear.

If too high a percentage of the total supply is stored to the contract, it results in unnecessary sell pressure and usually a dead chart within an hour from the point of launch.

So tomorrow I'm gonna quicky add a new feature to iToken that highlights any greedily configured CA.

It won't result in a hard scam warning, but there will be a 🛑 emoji, which until the next major iToken update is deployed will hopefully be a useful stop-gap.

Stay safe, and enjoy patting that roast dinner engorged belly.

iToken Update V.1.18 - Preloaded CA warnings

Due to the recent surge of quickly abandoned tax farms (many being false utility farms) using a greedily configured version of the Preloaded CA mechanism, iToken will now display information concerning what percentage of the total supply was stored to the contract (ready to be sold by the contract as traders sell) at the point of launch, if said data is available.

A greedily configured Preloaded CA is not quite a hard scam (although as a form of liquidity drainer, it's on the cusp), so a hard scam warning will not be issued. Instead, warnings will be similar to the following:

Preloaded CA: ⚠️ 6% of the total supply.

Preloaded CA: 🛑 12% of the total supply (expect sell pressure).

Currently testing in prod. Nothing has exploded just yet, so the warnings should start appearing momentarily.

Stay safe 🙏

The new Preloaded CA warning (replaces the Hidden Tax warning) seems to be purring like a kitten.

Hopefully over time, this will encourage farmers to be less greedy, or at the very least it'll serve to alert traders before rushing towards dump city (typically).

Stay safe 🙏

There is no spoon...and liquidity was unlocked 😐

Another day, another hard scam launched by Tyler Lumbard, AKA DevPepe, who happens to be fully doxed.

Token: TURDLE (Turdle)

Technique

👉 Deployer funded by one of his previous soft scams, supposedly for clout.
👉 Deployed a zero tax token.

Around this time, I issued a Repeat Scammer warning via iToken.

👉 Honeypotted by setting the sell tax to 99%.
👉 Renounced so that the trade tax couldn't be further modified.
👉 Pulled liquidity.

Apparently, it's my fault that he honeypotted then liquidity pulled, so I must be the one creating the victims.

Let's take a look at just one of his many former hard scams, one that wasn't reported at the time:

Token: Old School Crypto (OSC) - launched on January 22nd 2023

Technique

👉 Deployer funded via Binance.
👉 Deployed a zero tax token.
👉 Honeypotted by setting the sell tax to 99%.
👉 Renounced so that the trade tax couldn't be further modified.
👉 Pulled liquidity.
👉 Actually transferred the stolen funds to his own ENS, tylerlumbard.ens.

So far he's been reported to ActionFraud (cyber-crimes), HM Revenue and Customs (tax evasion), and currently his local constabulary (various crimes).

Today, if he stays true to form, he'll withdraw the ill-gotten gains to one of his many online casino accounts then host a VC where he gambles via blackjack, roulette, or whatever tickles his fancy, all the while declaring himself to be a chad. Not quite sure someone that's been hard scamming for an estimated 2+ years and created thousands of victims in the process could be considered a chad, but there you go.

P.S. earlier today, he also launched MEV (Sandwich Bot) where he again honeypotted then pulled liquidity. Just bad luck I suppose.

Annnnd another hard rug today by UK based, Tyler Lumbard.

If you wish to file a report via his local constabulary (the most responsive method), whether it be for trolling, hate crimes, threats, etc (take your pick), the following details will prove useful:

Avon and Somerset Constabulary

Within the UK: 101 or 01275 818340
Outside the UK: +44 1275 818340

Tyler's confirmed personal details

Name: Tyler Lumbard
Gender: male (ish)
Year of birth: 2005

Address:

24 Lyde Road
Yeovil
Somerset
BA21 5AT
United Kingdom

Phone number (unconfirmed): +44 7484 237558

As previously mentioned, a huge body of evidence has already been submitted to ActionFraud (cyber crimes), although additional reports submitted may help give his case the attention it deserves.

Suspected tax evasion can be reported here and is quick to do. Again, a report has already been submitted, but additional reports cannot do any harm.

Personally looking forward to a less distracting, Tyler free space in weeks to come. Fingers crossed.

Stay safe 🙏

And that's the fourth hard rug by Tyler today, those detected at least:

PLUNGER

We're going backwards 😐

Token: MPOLITICOS (Memes Politicos)

CA: 0x866F41Cce16Fa428638B49Ca20348d536Ab6af5d

This is a slightly unusual warning that I'm a touch hesitant about issuing.

Someone has recently been DM-ing me to warn that token X is about to be launched by a team of serial liquidity pullers. So far, that information has been accurate.

But because this team pull liquidity, which is hard to predict unless you have first hand knowledge of the scammer/scam team, I cannot rightly issue a high severity scam warning.

Apparently, this was a former scam by the same name and other details.

So instead, concerning the token above, I would simply advise caution. And let's see what happens...

Stay safe 🙏

Quick update concerning this warning:

They haven't removed liquidity yet but instead honeypotted with liquidity remaining unlocked.

Yesterday, Tyler decided to go underground, which is likely to be another attempt at engagement farming.

Didn't take him long to resurface with yet another fake swap utility farm though:

🛑 SENTRY: DEGEN (A Degens Swap)

This time he's claiming that "We are 2 Devs from the phillipines". Why the Philippines? Well, the attached audio clip may provide a clue.

🤷‍♂️

Tomorrow should be a special, particularly fluffy GIF day.

Stay adorable 🙏

With less than 2 hours to go, International Cat Day is nearly over [sad face] and it's been a blast.

So please, for one final pussy hurrah, feel free to share your favourite cat GIF's in the comments.

Stay curious 🐈