XIRTAM, an educational project, recently had a rug pull after raising 2,000 ETH, about $3.5 million. It was funded by CultDAO, which announced the project’s support seven days later, saying it raised $2 million for the token presale.

Subsequently, the project announced listing on Sushiswap. AscendEX exchange also announced its spot trading launch. 

The project founder moved the funds into Binance. A user, @ali_7, notified the Binance team of the issue and that the XIRTAM team did not add liquidity but instead ran away. He then urged Binance to freeze the funds.

2/2He moved1900etherium to a binance account, please take a proper action to seize this amount which he scamed innocent people's fundsThe transaction ishttps://t.co/ROpc157gy4@cz_binance @binance

— ali_7 (@sssskhhhhj) May 3, 2023

Binance froze the funds, but the community has not received an official response from the CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) or the Binance exchange page. In addition, the XIRTAM users are waiting to see how their funds will be redistributed. Meanwhile, the Binance security team is investigating the scam crypto culprit and bringing justice.

Hi Ali, our security team is waiting for you to investigate this issue in more details. Kindly join here https://t.co/v9Y5JzF5gC (App: Click headphone symbol on dashboard)and share your Case ID with us. It will be appeared on top of your chat box after you click "Get Support"…

— Binance Customer Support (@BinanceHelpDesk) May 3, 2023

After the rug pull news, the CultDAO token price fell more than 30% in just 24 hours. The price fall came after a 150% surge the last day after Elon Musk’s tweet saying, “Cult / Culture.” 

CULTUSD chart | Source: Tradingview Rug pulls have been surging 

There has been a recent surge in rug pulls. The latest is the Merlin DEX exit scam that led to a loss of about $2 million in user funds during the public sale of its MAGE tokens. The attack occurred despite the CertiK, a blockchain security firm, audit. Hence, the firm has asked to compensate the affected users. In the meantime, they urge the return of 80% of the funds and 20% to act as a white-hat bounty.    

Another project, Ordinals Finance, also faced a rug pull last week. CertiK reported the pull resulting in 256 million OFI tokens from its smart contract using a ‘safuToken” function. Another 13 million OFI was removed using the “ownerRewithdraw” process. Hence, the tokens totaled 269 million. In addition, their Twitter page was deleted.

Read more: What Is a Rug Pull In Crypto?