Magnate Finance, a lending project functioning on the Ethereum Layer 2 network Base, has seemingly orchestrated an exit scam, leaving in its wake an estimated $6.4 million unaccounted for.
PeckShield, a security firm, characterized this occurrence as a “rug pull,” a term denoting crypto developers deceitfully absconding with funds deposited by users.
An investigation by PeckShield revealed that Magnate Finance had manually manipulated the price oracle employed by the lending protocol, effectively siphoning off all user deposits.
Interestingly, the project’s team has essentially erased all digital traces. Their social media profiles on platforms like Twitter and Telegram have been deleted, and their official website is currently inaccessible.
This exit scam was brought to public attention following a warning issued by on-chain analyst ZachXBT. The analyst raised concerns about Magnate Finance’s potential to carry out an exit scam on Base.
These apprehensions were rooted in the discovery that the deployer address associated with Magnate Finance was directly linked to a prior exit scam involving a project called Solfire, which saw $4.8 million fraudulently obtained.
August has proven to be a turbulent month for the Base network. This incident marks the second instance of a “rug pull” in this month alone.
In an earlier incident, SwirlLend vanished with $460,000 in an exit scam, affecting both the Base and Linea platforms.