BALD: Scammer Alert!

In the last few days of July, witnessed the astonishing surge and subsequent downfall of BALD. This meme token was launched on Base, a new blockchain platform launched by the crypto exchange Coinbase, and was traded on the decentralized exchange, LeetSwap. This network is designed to be compatible with altcoins that impose a transaction fee, a category that includes BALD. 

BALD was listed right before its price pump, even though initial information about the meme coin had surfaced online earlier in the summer. For instance, on the blogging platform Medium, GN journalists found an article detailing the "ideology" behind this scam project.

“$BALD is a cryptocurrency that embraces the meme-worthy nature of being bald. Designed to capture the humor and cultural significance of baldness in the digital age, $BALD aims to unite a community of meme enthusiasts, promoting laughter and camaraderie. With its unique concept and playful approach, $BALD aims to bring joy to the world of cryptocurrencies while embracing the power of memes,” says a blogger going by the alias BaldCoin.

The fraudster provided links to official BALD pages, but by the time the token's price began to rise, all of them were offline. 

The abrupt rise in BALD's price was initially spotted by well-known crypto-journalist Colin Wu.

“Memecoin BALD based on the Base network has increased by as much as 30,000x in the past 24 hours, and its market value has exceeded 70 million US dollars. At present, there are about 25,000 ETH deposited on the Base chain, of which LeetSwap BALD/WETH has more than 9,800 WETH liquidity,” he tweeted.

Around this time, a new account named BaldBaseBald emerged on X. As of early August, it remains active and is engaging with the crypto community (more on this later).

News about the token's surge, widely spread in the media, was often paired with images of Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong. This imagery was fuelling the hype around BALD, suggesting that Brian himself was promoting this project. The proof? His own baldness! Moreover, the Base blockchain, which is under the central control of Coinbase, is set to be decentralized in the future.

Success stories of traders who made gains on the token spread rapidly across the internet. For example, a user on platform X, under the pseudonym Cheatcoiner, revealed that he had bought 2% of the total BALD supply when the project's market cap was only $50,000. He pledged not to sell his stake until its cap reached $100 million. This story caught the attention of industry outlet CoinDesk and was even reprinted by the media titan, Yahoo! Finance.

In time, the rumors around Armstrong's involvement began to coalesce around a plausible explanation: supposedly, the coin's sharp rise was driven by a 'whale' with a significant stash of cbETH (Coinbase Wrapped Staked ETH). Thus, if it wasn't Brian, it certainly must have been someone associated with his exchange.

This wave of media exuberance lasted a couple of days, within which the token skyrocketed by 40,000%. At its peak, BALD's market cap was an astounding $85 million. However, as anticipated, the scam's architects soon pulled the rug — a substantial amount of liquidity was withdrawn. Consequently, the thieves absconded with 7000 ETH and 142 million BALD tokens in a single transaction. The value of the token took a nosedive to $0.015, representing a staggering drop of more than 84%.

Almost immediately after the crash, all information related to the BALD project was erased from CoinMarketCap. It became clear that the market had been hit by yet another scam.

According to some analysts, the orchestrator behind the BALD project could be none other than Sam Bankman-Fried himself! For instance, Adam Cochran, the managing partner at CEHV Fund, supports this theory. Cochran managed to unearth an old poll from the decentralized exchange (DEX) SushiSwap, where he found an address marked as Alameda Research. Interestingly, this address had been involved in withdrawing funds from the BALD pool. Furthermore, it was discovered that this same address had been receiving deposits from FTX and Alameda for several years. 

Another plausible theory suggests that Sam might have collaborated with US authorities. The goal of this unusual partnership could have been to discredit Coinbase and the cryptocurrency sector in general, amidst the pressure exerted on the exchange in ongoing legal battles with the SEC. This event provided a real-time demonstration of the vulnerabilities and incompetencies of participants in the cryptocurrency market and the inability of contemporary cryptocurrencies to filter out such scams.

Therefore, clever fraudsters managed to make millions literally out of nothing, causing significant harm to the unsuspecting crypto community. The lack of foresight of the token holders is also recognized in BALD threads: 

“Anyone whoever put $1 into this, or any of these meme coins, has failed a very simple IQ test. Bitcoin is the money,” states a user under the nickname Hu Ch'?ng.

In the meantime, the BaldBaseBald account is shifting the blame onto Base.

“Current plan SUBJECT TO CHANGE is to wait as long as it takes until there’s a reputable dex with at least somewhat low chance of exploit before adding back very modest amount of liquidity,” writes the scammer.

We reiterate, a sudden price surge in a new altcoin, which lacks identifiable authors or a website, is likely a trap. Do not invest more in such projects than you can afford to lose!