Rug Pull eyewash: The Gloom of the Crypto Assets World

In the digital currency space, some investors have reaped huge rewards due to good luck, but many others have suffered significant losses due to malicious actions by project parties. Recently, the price of Aura (AURA) tokens surged by 800% in just a few hours, skyrocketing from $0.001 to a peak of $0.008, with trading volume soaring over 115,000% compared to the previous day. However, experienced analysts warn that this abnormal price increase may be hiding organized fraud, known as the "Rug Pull"( carpet-pulling fraud). This criminal method is spreading on a large scale in the Crypto Assets market in an industrialized manner.

The Astonishing Scale of Rug Pull Projects

Through the analysis of smart contracts on major blockchain networks, data shows that over 300,000 tokens have encountered varying degrees of eyewash. This means that hundreds of "trap coins" are deployed to the network every day. On Ethereum, there are approximately 266,000 independent addresses specifically engaged in creating and promoting fraudulent tokens. These "developers" leverage low-threshold coin issuance tools and a large user base to precisely set up scam traps.

Although the average profit of a single scam project on Ethereum is about 1.65 million dollars, the total illegal income has reached an astonishing figure of 502 billion dollars due to the large number of participants. Other blockchain networks such as Polygon and Linea also have varying degrees of Rug Pull phenomena. More than 7.05 million investors have become direct victims of such scams, meaning that the wealth of millions of individuals and families has vanished in these traps.

Diversified Techniques of Rug Pull

Hard Rug Pull: Complete Eyewash

Hard Rug Pull is a highly violent fraud method. Scammers drain all liquidity from a project in a short period by pre-setting malicious code or vulnerabilities. Some addresses have records of crimes on multiple blockchains, showing that the scam gang is proficient in cross-chain operations, able to exploit the characteristics of different networks to commit crimes and evade tracking.

Many scam addresses exhibit a very high crime rate. For example, one address on a blockchain is associated with 45 Rug Pull coins and 37 drained liquidity pools. These addresses behave like locusts, deploying tokens en masse, quickly draining funds, and then disappearing or assuming a new identity to commit fraud again.

The lifespan of a large number of hard Rug Pull tokens is extremely short, with some even completing their scams on the day they are created. This "blitzkrieg" style operation leaves investors with almost no chance to react or exit.

Soft Rug Pull: Boiling Frogs in Warm Water

Compared to the direct violence of hard Rug Pulls, soft Rug Pulls are more covert and insidious. They typically only siphon off about 50% of liquidity, which prevents the token price from immediately plummeting to zero, instead creating an illusion of a slow decline or a temporary adjustment by the project team. Scammers may fabricate various reasons, such as system upgrades or responding to market fluctuations, causing some investors to be caught off guard and unable to withdraw in time due to a sense of complacency, ultimately suffering significant losses during the continued downturn.

2023: Peak Period for Rug Pulls

Data shows that the deployment of fraudulent tokens on Ethereum reached a historical peak in 2023, totaling about 126,000, accounting for nearly 42.3% of the total over the past five years. Although the deployment volume is expected to decline in 2024, it remains high. Notably, the average lifespan of scam contracts has sharply shortened from 356 days in 2021 to an estimated only 3.8 days in 2025, which poses higher demands on risk control models.

Conclusion

Rug Pull has developed into a mature black industrial chain with clear division of labor, tooling, and process. In the face of such a large scale of fraud, investors need to be vigilant and understand common scam tactics, such as promises of high returns, anonymous teams, lack of audits, and suspicious liquidity locks. Before investing, carefully check whether the contract is open source, whether it has been audited by reputable institutions, and whether the team's background is verifiable; these are all necessary preventive measures.

Rug Pull not only caused huge economic losses but also severely damaged the trust foundation of the entire blockchain and Crypto Assets industry. Exposing these dark behaviors is not only to remind everyone to pay attention to risks but also to promote the industry to establish a more完善的监管体系 and maintain the healthy development of the market.