Coinbase Resets Blockchain After BALD Memecoin Rug Pull

There has been a lot of speculation on crypto social media about the latest over-hyped memecoin BALD. Many postulate that Sam Bankman-Fried was the brainchild behind the latest pump and dump memecoin.

Wild conspiracy theories flooded Crypto Twitter, suggesting that SBF might be the mastermind behind a new memecoin deployed on Coinbase’s layer-2 Base. 

Did SBF Deploy BALD?

The mystery deployer launched the BALD memecoin, named after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong’s lack of hair, on July 30. It immediately attracted degens and gained thousands of percent, peaking at $0.09 on July 31. 

The speculation was initiated by “@hype_eth,” who simply posted a list of potential connections.

They added,

“On-chain activity times line up with court dates/bail. We know SBF was doing stuff through VPN recently.”

Furthermore, they also analyzed language structure, noting similarities between the BALD developer account and Bankman-Fried’s. 

Industry analyst Colin Wu used Arkham to determine the address had “frequent and large transfers of funds with the FTX.” He added that another address of the owner had “$20 million in funds transactions with Alameda-related addresses.”

“Considering the size of the funds, it is reasonable to judge that this is a trader within Alameda or a related market-making team.”  

Ethereum advocate Ryan Sean Adams also joined the conspiracy by tweeting: 

“SBF the guy with the fake crypto exchange and responsible for one of the biggest frauds in history may have launched a $30m scam last weekend under a memecoin called BALD while on house arrest in his parents basement using the blockchain of a man who was one of his biggest competitors (and is also bald) and he thought no one would notice and idk what drugs he’s on but good god man,” 

Meanwhile, pseudonymous trader, Hsaka, suggested that the move may have given the Securities and Exchange Commission and Gary Gensler “some ammo against Coinbase.”

However, the anonymous BALD developer removed a lot of the liquidity, sparking allegations of a rug pull. De.Fi’s Rekt database has already labeled it as such, reporting losses of $23 million. 

Coinbase Pulls the Plug

BALD prices have dumped 93% in less than 24 hours as the latest memcoin craze fizzles out. 

On Aug. 1, Armstrong stated that the company has rolled back the Coinbase layer-2 blockchain to the beginning following the BALD memecoin rug pull. 

“Following a $23m $BALD “rugpull” on our freshly launched Base, we have taken the uneasy decision to roll back the chain to Genesis block.”

Meanwhile, the DeFi ecosystem faces its own black swan event as a massive CRV loan faces liquidation.