The developer behind the memecoin FRENS has been accused of pulling the rug from under the project after he removed several thousand dollars worth of liquidity from the crypto project. The deployer, whose identity was revealed by the crypto community on X (formerly Twitter) earlier today, is reportedly an early employee of the popular decentralized crypto exchange Uniswap.
Frenstech (@FrensTech) $FRENS was deployed a few hours ago by the dev, @AzFlin a Uniswap employee.
One hour and four minutes ago he effectively rugged the project moving 14 ETH off of Base chain through HOP. https://t.co/UUpz1PYXLQ
Multiple people have confirmed he is the dev… pic.twitter.com/xMyQxbqj0f
— 👀 (@UniswapVillain) August 12, 2023
An on-chain expert who goes by UniswapVillain on X took to the social networking platform earlier today to report that the deployer of FrensTech had rugged the project. FrensTech, which was deployed less than 24 hours ago, was rugged by its deployer AzFlin less than 12 hours ago. The deployer moved 14 ETH ($25,800) from the newly launched Base network using a multi-chain bridge called HOP.
Data from Etherscan showed that AzFlin had transferred 14 wETH off the project. “He removed liquidity he added from fees and pocketed 14 ETH of fees. He sold the tokens he removed from liquidity even,” the on-chain expert told his followers. The deployer reportedly took a temperature check on X before the rug pull, where he asked the crypto community if team members of a project selling coins would be considered a rug.
AzFlin took to X to respond to the community’s complaints after allegations of a rug pull started pouring in. He acknowledged that he was the developer and deployer of the FRENS token, but denied pulling the rug. According to him, liquidity in the project was locked from the beginning and added that he had only removed 1 ETH worth of liquidity which he claimed to have provided with funds from his developer wallet.
The deployer acknowledged that he sold FRENS tokens once its market capitalization reached $30,000 but defended his actions by claiming that the sold tokens were initially purchased by him to induce liquidity into the project. According to him, the allegations of a rug pull were nothing but FUD.
