How crypto developer Ian Macalinao posed as 11 independent devs and created a web of DeFi protocols that temporarily inflated the total value locked on Solana
The Macalinao brothers used a web of bogus identities to create the illusion of a dev community, juicing value on the Saber protocol and Solana blockchain.
CoinDesk
Related Coverage
- Ian Macalinao revealed to have pumped the total value locked on the Solana ecosystem by pretending to be 11 developers working on over a dozen projects Web3 is going just great · Molly White
- DeFi Sybil attack created $7.5B fake TVL on Solana from ‘anon’ developers CryptoSlate · Liam ‘Akiba’ Wright
- Macalinao brothers accused of exploiting Solana network. CoinGape · Tanvi Singh
Discussion
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@raganwald
@raganwald
on x
If you strip the talk of blockchains and protocol stacks out of this story, what's left is as old as the hills and twice as tired. https://www.coindesk.com/...
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@notbunjil
@notbunjil
on x
this guy should launch a collection of himself in different disguises like all his alts lmao https://twitter.com/...
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@amyhoy
Amy Hoy
on x
an impressive crypto scam shows why you can't win against con artists: they spend every waking moment figuring out how to trick you. they excel at twisty thinking that would NEVER occur to you bc you have other things to do! you can only refuse to play at all https://twitter.com/…
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@wublockchain
Wu Blockchain
on x
CoinDesk: The Macalinao brothers, the chief architect of Saber, coding as 11 purportedly independent developers, to create the illusion of a dev community, juicing value on the Saber protocol and Solana blockchain. Now they're moving to Aptos. https://www.coindesk.com/...
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@carnage4life
Dare Obasanjo
on x
When building an online identity solution you get to pick 2 out of 3 of • Private • Decentralized • Resistant to Fake Accounts The crypto industry picked the first 2 which is why behavior like this is common as is wash trading & shill bidding. https://www.coindesk.com/...
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@chainyoda
@chainyoda
on x
My war on TVL as a metric for #defi traction is going well https://twitter.com/...
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@0x7d54
@0x7d54
on x
Wow, this is some unreal, shady stuff, with a lot of downstream implications. Solana became over-hyped and over-valued in part because of this unethical actor (and any who knew but let it fly). https://twitter.com/...
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@chainlinkgod
@chainlinkgod
on x
Projects in the crypto space will do anything to manipulate growth metrics and drive speculation Even to go as far to create fake sockpocket accounts to pretend to be independent devs I wasn't exaggerating in my latest blog https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
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@jwweatherman_
JW Weatherman
on x
This is called securities fraud. Promoters can't lie about talent and pending developments to pump a stonk. https://twitter.com/...