Grave allegations of involvement in pump and dump schemes are gathering steam in opposition to the previous head of OpenSea Ventures, Kevin Pawlak.
In line with NFT Ethics, a non-fungible token (NFT) associated investigative information account on X, Pawlak has masterminded or been concerned in “numerous very doubtful enterprise dealings” in addition to pump and dump schemes. NFT Ethics claims that Pawlak allegedly perpetrated the fraudulent actions by his pseudonymous id “@0xSisyphus“ and “0xMagellan.”
The proof in opposition to Pawlak unearthed final month
NFT Ethics first made the allegations in opposition to Pawlak final month. On the time, it concluded after an investigation that Pawlak was the proprietor of the X account @0xSisyphus. The X-based information channel concluded after evaluating the transactions and corresponding time stamps of pawlak.eth and sisyphus.eth addresses.
Blockchain information signifies that an Ethereum deal with beginning with “0xBB5B” registered domains like kevinpawlak.eth, pavvlak.eth, pawlak.eth, and kevinpawlak.eth on October 4, 2021.
The NFT Ethics investigation revealed that each addresses—pawlak.eth and sisyphus.eth—minted Zorbs tokens inside a minute of one another, and sismo.eth DAO tokens inside 10 minutes of one another.
With screenshots evaluating the actions of the 2 addresses in query, NFT Ethics wrote:
“…the next timestamps completely match up, and given the very restricted exercise of pawlak.eth, we now have now accounted for many of their actions which can be completely according to sisyphus.eth.”
NFT Ethics later added that a number of nameless sources have confirmed that Pawlak is certainly the person behind the account Sisyphus. The information channel additionally claimed that Pawlak had a “doubtful function” within the $60 million AnubisDAO rugpull in October 2021 and had a hand in a “Rollbit shill.”
An alternate concept to Anubis Rugpull
In a put up 10 days after the preliminary allegations, NFT Ethics posted a thread alleging that the Anubis incident was a “premeditated rug” by Sisyphus and that the stolen funds had been being laundered by PEPE tokens.
In line with NFT Ethics, Pawlak, underneath his pseudonym, allegedly “hyped” the Anubis undertaking on Discord a day earlier than the rugpull, which was recorded by a consumer. Pawlak claimed to have invested $420,000 within the undertaking and vowed to take a position extra the subsequent day. On the time, the funds of the Anubis undertaking rested within the palms of Ethan Cheung, a 19-year-old.
When the undertaking was rugged the subsequent day, Cheung claimed to have acquired an electronic mail from Sisyphus containing a malicious PDF file that compromised his machine and pockets. In line with NFT Ethics, Cheung’s model of the story has been corroborated by a number of people. Sisyphus, nevertheless, launched a weblog put up allegedly “framing” Cheung for the rug pull.
NFT Ethics concluded that Sisyphus doubtless orchestrated the Anubis rug pull with a co-conspirator and added:
“The function of Pawlak, Zim & Co. within the $60m Anubis rug & different PnD schemes is deserving of much more scrutiny. They’ve the mental/technical capacity to orchestrate such “hacks” and we hope for a deep investigation into the origins of all their crypto/FIAT funds/purchases.”
Extra proof revealed
In a follow-up put up on Oct. 5, NFT Ethics shared screenshots of chat logs from the Anubis group dated 27-29 October 2021. From the chats, NFT Ethics concluded that Sisyphus was the “mind” behind the Anubis undertaking, who was answerable for approving every little thing from the wording of X posts to all technical and monetary selections.
NFT Ethics added:
“He conveniently falsified his function in his timeline as “Sisyphus to deal with public face and serving to pull DAO members collectively”, however he’s the one in cost & calling the photographs.”
NFT Ethics added additional screenshots to allege that Sisyphus masterminded the Anubis rug pull and framed Cheung to take the autumn.
Of their newest put up, which was reposted by blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain, NFT Ethics famous:
“We shunned posting these earlier, however the quantity of silence on this topic is deafening. As a result of he’s well-connected, not many individuals dare to talk out about this fraudulent community of individuals.”
Lookonchain has additionally independently verified that the transaction time stamps on the 2 addresses, pawlak.eth and sisyphus.eth, sync collectively. The platform added:
“The #OpenSea govt is among the largest PnD (Pump and Dump) within the area and is concerned in market manipulation and scams. If this had been true, that may be horrible.”
The allegations in opposition to Pawlak have been confirmed by a journalist at The Block, Tim Copeland, who stated he confirmed Sisyphus’ id through undisclosed sources.
It’s price noting that former OpenSea product supervisor Nate Chastain was convicted of fraud and cash laundering in an insider buying and selling case in Might 2023. Chastain was sentenced to a few months in jail in August.
CryptoSlate reached out to OpenSea for remark and a spokeperson from OpenSea offered the next assertion:
“Kevin is a former worker who left the corporate in June of 2023. He had a restricted scope whereas at OpenSea- the place he labored in a non-management place. Now we have no consciousness of his involvement with the tasks in query. Moreover, we now have no connection to, or details about, the tasks in query, as they befell earlier than his time at OpenSea.”
