Allegations of running pump and dump schemes surface against former head of OpenSea Ventures

Grave allegations of involvement in pump and dump schemes are gathering steam in opposition to the previous head of OpenSea Ventures, Kevin Pawlak.

In response to NFT Ethics, a non-fungible token (NFT) associated investigative information account on X, Pawlak has masterminded or been concerned in “varied very doubtful enterprise dealings” in addition to pump and dump schemes. NFT Ethics claims that Pawlak allegedly perpetrated the fraudulent actions by way of his pseudonymous identification “@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 knowledge 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, now we have now accounted for many of their actions which are 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.”

Another idea to Anubis Rugpull

In a publish 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 have been being laundered by way of PEPE tokens.

In response to NFT Ethics, Pawlak, beneath his pseudonym, allegedly “hyped” the Anubis undertaking on Discord a day earlier than the rugpull, which was recorded by a person.  Pawlak claimed to have invested $420,000 within the undertaking and vowed to take a position extra the following day. On the time, the funds of the Anubis undertaking rested within the arms of Ethan Cheung, a 19-year-old.

When the undertaking was rugged the following day, Cheung claimed to have acquired an electronic mail from Sisyphus containing a malicious PDF file that compromised his system and pockets. In response to NFT Ethics, Cheung’s model of the story has been corroborated by a number of people. Sisyphus, nevertheless, launched a weblog publish allegedly “framing” Cheung for the rug pull.

NFT Ethics concluded that Sisyphus seemingly 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 way more scrutiny. They’ve the mental/technical potential 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 publish on Oct. 5, NFT Ethics shared screenshots of chat logs from the Anubis crew dated 27-29 October 2021. From the chats, NFT Ethics concluded that Sisyphus was the “mind” behind the Anubis undertaking, who was accountable for approving all the pieces 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 publish, which was reposted by blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain, NFT Ethics famous:

“We kept away from 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 government is likely one of the largest PnD (Pump and Dump) within the discipline and is concerned in market manipulation and scams. If this have been true, that might be horrible.”

The allegations in opposition to Pawlak have been confirmed by a journalist at The Block, Tim Copeland, who mentioned he confirmed Sisyphus’ identification by way of undisclosed sources.

It’s value noting that former OpenSea product supervisor Nate Chastain was convicted of fraud and cash laundering in an insider buying and selling case in Could 2023. Chastain was sentenced to a few months in jail in August.

CryptoSlate reached out to OpenSea for remark and a spokeperson from OpenSea supplied 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, now we have no connection to, or details about, the tasks in query, as they happened earlier than his time at OpenSea.”