The Dark Side of the Crypto Assets World: Analyzing "Rug Pull Fraud"

Recently, the Crypto Assets market has experienced abnormal fluctuations again. The price of a certain token surged by 800% in just a few hours, raising alarms among industry experts. This crime method, known as "rug pull fraud," is spreading in the Crypto Assets field on an industrial scale.

Huge Scam Scale

According to statistics from a certain data platform, as many as 300,000 tokens have experienced varying degrees of "rug pull" attacks, with hundreds of "trap tokens" lurking on the network every day. On the Ethereum network, approximately 266,000 unique addresses are active in the creation and promotion of fraudulent tokens. These criminals take advantage of low-threshold token issuance tools and a large user base to precisely set up their scam traps.

Although the average profit from a single scam project on Ethereum is about $1.65 million, its large base has resulted in a staggering total income of $502 billion. Other public chains like Polygon and Linea also have varying degrees of such issues. It is estimated that over 7.05 million investors have become direct victims of these scams, resulting in a significant loss of personal and family wealth.

The Diversity of Fraud Techniques

"Carpet pulling fraud" mainly consists of two types: hard pull and soft pull.

Hard extraction is a thorough plundering act where scammers directly withdraw all the liquidity of a project by pre-setting malicious code or vulnerabilities. Some criminals even frequently commit crimes on multiple public chains, using the characteristics of different chains to evade tracking.

Soft withdrawals are more covert and insidious. Scammers typically pull away about 50% of the liquidity, creating an illusion of a slow decline or a temporary adjustment by the project team. They may fabricate various reasons, such as system upgrades or responding to market fluctuations, causing some investors to fail to withdraw in time due to a sense of luck.

The Periodicity of Scam Activities

Data shows that 2023 was the peak year for the deployment of fraudulent tokens on the Ethereum network, reaching 125,000, accounting for nearly 42.3% of the total over the past five years. However, this number plummeted to about 69,000 in 2024. Notably, the average lifespan of fraudulent contracts has sharply decreased from 356 days in 2021 to just 3.8 days in 2025.

The data indicates that "carpet pulling fraud" has evolved into a well-defined, tool-oriented, and process-driven mature black industrial chain. The cost of fraud is extremely low, while the potential profits are huge, making it particularly difficult to combat such criminal activities.

Ways for Investors to Protect Themselves

In the face of such a massive scale of fraud, investors need to remain vigilant and understand common fraudulent practices. These practices include but are not limited to: promising high returns, anonymous teams, lack of audits, suspicious or missing liquidity locks, excessive hype on social media, and abnormal price surges in a short period of time.

Before making investment decisions, investors should carefully check whether the project contract is open source, whether it has been audited by reputable institutions, whether the team background is verifiable, and the status of liquidity locking, among other key information. These steps should become essential processes for every Crypto Assets investor.

Conclusion

The rampant "carpet-pulling fraud" has not only caused significant economic losses but has also severely threatened the trust foundation of the entire blockchain and Crypto Assets industry. Uncovering the truth behind these dark behaviors is not only to remind investors to be aware of risks but also to promote the establishment of a more sound regulatory system for the entire industry. Only through collective efforts can we maintain market fairness and transparency, protect investors' interests, and promote the healthy development of the Crypto Assets industry.