2023-12-29 12:03:31
The crypto sector can be many things, but it is rarely boring. From hacking attacks to arrests to a billion dollar token burn, here are some crypto stories that are a little weirder than the rest, making it to our list of the five weirdest stories of the year.
In November, the decentralized exchange aggregator KyberSwap was attacked by a group of hackers, stealing $46 million worth of tokens. Exploits like this are not unusual in the crypto business. What happened next, however, made the KyberSwap incident very interesting in its own right.
On November 30, the KyberSwap hacker sent an intra-chain message detailing his demands, including taking full executive control of the company. The hacker also demanded that the head of Kyber hand over all of the company’s assets to the hacker. The brash individual then promised to buy out existing managers at “fair value” and double all staff salaries if the terms were accepted.
The hacker concluded by saying: “This is my best offer. That’s my only offer. My claims must be fulfilled by December 10, otherwise the contract will be void.”
To no one’s surprise, KyberSwap failed to meet the hacker’s bizarre list of demands.
BitBoy under arrest
In September, Ben Armstrong — aka BitBoy Crypto — showed up at his former employee Carlos Diaz’s front door and began a livestream that quickly landed the influencer on the wrong side of the law and behind bars.
Standing outside Diaz’s front door, Armstrong began a long list of accusations against him, accusing Diaz of threatening his life. Armstrong then went on to say that Diaz had ties to the “Black Mafia.” He then yelled at his former employee for stealing his Lamborghini.
“Carlos Diaz, the man who has my Lamborghini, the man who blackmailed me for my Lamborghini, the man who beat me to death for my Lamborghini.” Armstrong said with a confusing turn of phrase.
More generally, Armstrong seemed confused as to why he was in Diaz’s possession at all.
First, Armstrong stated, “I’ve been in legitimate fear for my life for weeks.” before changing his mind and saying “If Carlos Diaz comes out of this house and tries to kill me live on YouTube, it will be what it will be.”
During the half-hour broadcast, Armstrong was both afraid and not afraid of his former employee, and he wanted people to know that he was and wasn’t afraid.
The 37-minute argument lasted until the police arrived and immediately arrested the influencer, who brought his gun and his lover, Cassandra Wolfe, to the scene of the disturbance. Armstrong was eventually released after posting $2,600 bail.
The $650 billion burn
In October, Uniswap founder Hayden Adams burned 99.9% of the supply of HayCoin (HAY), which was “absurdly” valued at $650 billion.
Adams installed the HAY token for testing five years ago, before launching Uniswap. In doing so, he created a small liquidity pool from a fraction of the total supply, and kept 99.9% of the remaining tokens for himself.
Over time, traders began buying and selling 0.1% of tokens as memecoins, pumping up the value of HAY. After the burning, the value of HAY tokens flew from $580,005 on October 20 to over $4 million on October 26.
Duplicate NFTs
In October, a US court ordered Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen to pay Yuga Labs $1.57 million in damages for copying Bored Apes Yacht Club’s NFTs.
The strangeness is the behavior of Ripps and Cahen during the incident. For a while, Ripps claimed that Bored NFTs had a racist and anti-Semitic identity, and even started a website to accuse the brand of containing “Nazi dog whistles”.
Ripps and Cahen then launched a series of copycat NFTs that infringed BAYC’s intellectual property. However, while the BAYC NFTs were allegedly racist when Yuga Labs created them, Ripps and Cahen argued that it was “satire” when they were widely copied and profited from.
Not surprisingly, this argument has found little favor in legal circles.
Heart is a documentary
In July, Richard Heart, founder of HEX and PulseChain, his vanity project, a The Highest of Stakes prepared for its premiere.
Heart has a history of extravagant exaggerations, so even now there was serious anticipation surrounding the film’s release. Unbeknownst to Heart, however, the SEC was in on the soup. Because the SEC took legal action against him at the same time, but dropped the fraud charges just in time, but it was still enough to spoil Heart’s party.
While Heart has a loyal following in the crypto world, outsiders are less than impressed with the influencer and project founder’s demeanor. As one film critic said: “Is a person a fraud even if he says in advance that he is going to cheat?”.
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