Journalist
Hassan Shittu
Journalist
Hassan Shittu
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A Solana-based Telegram trading bot project, Aquabot, has allegedly executed a rug pull, disappearing with more than $4.65 million in presale funds just hours before its planned token generation event.
On-chain investigator ZachXBT was the first to flag the suspicious activity, noting that Aquabot’s presale wallet moved 21,770 SOL, worth roughly $4.65 million, into multiple intermediary addresses before routing the funds to instant exchanges.
The transfers were split into four tranches, a tactic often associated with attempts to obscure transaction trails.
The presale address, identified as 4Ea23VxEGAgfbtauQZz11aKNtzHJwb84ppsg3Cz14u6q, had collected the funds through what the project described as a “gamified” presale mechanism.
Investors were told they could receive multipliers on their allocations through a randomizer, and the team initially promised 100% token distribution at launch without vesting.
However, shortly before the token generation event, Aquabot altered its terms, imposing vesting on presale buyers.
The sudden fund movements came just before the launch, triggering accusations of fraud across the Solana community. Following the transfers, the Aquabot team locked replies on all of its X posts, further fueling concerns.
The situation has drawn heightened scrutiny because several high-profile names in the Solana ecosystem had promoted Aquabot.
Platforms and teams, including Meteora, Quill Audits, Helius, SYMMIO, and Dialect, amplified the project in recent weeks.
Influencers also endorsed the presale, touting its novel approach to distribution and low trading fees compared with competitors.
Critics argue that such endorsements have created a false sense of security around the project.
“Once again, reputable protocols interact and make partnerships with ruggers, and then they act like nothing happened,” one community member wrote, reflecting growing frustration with repeated presale scams on Solana.
Aquabot marketed itself as a low-fee Telegram trading bot, promising a 0.25% transaction fee structure and a novel “liquidity ladder” presale design intended to stagger entry prices for buyers.
The approach was pitched as a solution to the “inorganic” trading patterns that often emerge when all presale investors share the same cost basis.
Enthusiasm for the model was visible across X, where some users said that they considered replicating the idea for future token launches.
Instead, the project appears to have followed a familiar pattern of sudden fund withdrawals and vanished communication channels.
With the presale funds now dispersed across exchanges, recovery prospects appear slim.
The incident has reignited calls for greater transparency in Solana’s rapidly growing ecosystem.
Critics say teams and investors need to exercise far more caution when associating with new projects, particularly those offering novel mechanics or unusually favorable terms.
“There can be no tolerance for such behavior. What we need—at the very least—is radical transparency across Solana,” ZachXBT said in his Telegram channel, where he first detailed the transfers.
Surge in Solana Presale Scams Raises Investor Concerns
This is not the first time the network has faced presale scams; last year, ZachXBT warned that many projects are either fraudulent or on the verge of rug pulls.
On Solana, presale hype fueled a wave of rug pulls. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT flagged multiple cases where projects collected millions in SOL before vanishing.
One wallet tied to @Sartoshi0x raised 7,000 SOL but withheld 62% of the funds. Another scam directed 2,100 SOL to a fake Jared MEV bot account.
Presales by @bluekirbyftm and @Vombatus_eth also collapsed after promises of refunds were broken. In total, just 33 presales pulled in over $150 million in SOL.
Despite the risks, Solana’s social metrics surged. LunarCrush reported more than 22.6 million engagements and 121,000 mentions, with Solana’s market cap climbing to $116.7 billion.
A $1.65 billion Solana treasury initiative led by Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto, and Multicoin Capital further boosted confidence in the ecosystem.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., federal prosecutors secured a conviction in one of the year’s biggest cryptojacking cases. Charles O. Parks III, known as “CP3O,” was sentenced to one year and a day in prison for defrauding cloud service providers of $3.5 million in computing power.
Between January and August 2021, he mined nearly $1 million worth of Ether, Litecoin, and Monero. Parks laundered the proceeds through exchanges and luxury purchases, including a Mercedes-Benz, before pleading guilty to wire fraud in December 2023.
Scams also extended to new token launches. The WEB3 presale, which raised $500,000 in hours, drew scrutiny after ZachXBT linked its team to the failed Squiggles NFT project and alleged scammer Raichu.
And in June, the same investigator tied WhiteRock Finance to ZKasino’s $33 million exit scam, exposing what appeared to be a laundering scheme disguised as a real-world asset platform.
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