Allegations surface against the team behind the OrdiZK (OZK) cross-chain bridging protocol, accusing them of disappearing with $1.4 million worth of investors’ crypto assets, according to CertiK, a blockchain security platform.
In total, wallets belonging to the OrdiZK team hold ~$1.4m ETH.
OrdiZK Deployer: $1,037,125.98
OrdiZK Treasury: $263,482.20
OrdiZK Marketing wallet: $173,899.48— CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) March 5, 2024
CertiK’s report highlights that on March 4, the deployer account of the protocol purportedly dumped 489 million OZK tokens on a decentralized exchange, yielding $132,000. This move led to a drastic 98% decline in the token price. Subsequently, on March 5, another sale of approximately $214,000 worth of OZK tokens caused an additional 99% slippage.
Blockchain records validate that on March 4, the OZK deployer initiated the “execute” function on Uniswap’s Universal Router contract, resulting in the exchange of around 489 million OZK for 35.65 Ether (ETH).
On March 5, an additional 121 million OZK tokens were swapped through the execute function, leading to a transfer of 0.93 ETH from Uniswap’s OZK/ETH liquidity pool to the deployer account.
Moreover, the deployer withdrew 57.68 ETH (approximately $197,000 at current prices) from the OZKStake contract by executing the “emergencyWithdraw” function.
According to CertiK, the project also held $263,000 in a “marketing wallet” and $174,000 in a “treasury wallet,” indicating that the project had over $1.4 million across these three wallets before the alleged exit scam.
The project’s X account, Telegram group, and documents have all been deleted.
Despite being only two months into 2024, crypto scammers and hackers have already managed to siphon off hundreds of millions of dollars from unsuspecting victims. According to blockchain security firm Immunefi, losses from such incidents have surpassed $200 million so far this year. On February 26, gambling protocol RiskOnBlast became the first rug pull on the new Blast network, absconding with $1 million of investors’ funds.
