A new honeypot scam has just come to light with a new Solana-based memecoin
The scam coin called “Bonk Killer”, boasted a fake market cap of $328 trillion, which is a huge red flag.
The developer held a senseless 90% of the Bonk Killer supply, which should have been another warning sign.
This serves as a reminder to research developers, tokenomics, and smart contracts before investments
The Solana memecoin craze has become a menace these days, considering the rate at which scams, thefts and rug pulls continue to pop up every day.
Just last week, we had a thread from blockchain sleuth, Zach XBT, which showed that 12 Solana memecoins that launched throughout March turned out to be scams, that forced investors to part with a staggering $26 million or more.
This time around, we have a relatively new kind of scam, called a Honeypot scam, and the story below may come across as unbelievable.
Honeypot scams are just like most other kinds of scams. Just that victims are lured in with promises of high returns, or easy money.
The scammers set up a fake cryptocurrency (a memecoin in this case), and get investors to jump in—this is where the scam begins.
The smart contracts that hold investor funds are designed in such a way that once funds are in, they cannot be withdrawn—except by the scammer—hence the name, "honey pot".
Once an investor's hand goes into the pot, it cannot be withdrawn without first letting go of the honey inside.
The memecoin in question as far as this scam goes, is called Bonk Killer, and here is the story of how it managed to gather a fake $328 trillion market cap.
Keep in mind that a market cap of $328 trillion is no joking matter.
This figure trumps the total market cap of Bitcoin and every other altcoin by around 140 times. This should have been the first red flag.
Bonk Killer launched on 29 April, garnering around $4.6 million in trading volume in a mere 24 hours.
Unfortunately for the investors, the developer triggered the "freeze authority," command on the smart contracts, which prevented the investors from moving or withdrawing their tokens.
If you're unable to sell, it's worth $0
Moreover, according to data from Birdeye, the developer of this “Bonk Killer” memecoin holds around 90% of the token’s total supply—which should have been the second red flag.
It turns out that what happened with BONKKILLER has been happening with several other cryptocurrencies, on several other blockchains for years now.
One of the most devastating kinds of memecoin honeypots was the Squid Game memecoin from 2021, which was based on Netflix's hit South Korean movie series of the same name.
What happened with Bonk Killer only goes to highlight the dangers of jumping (or "APEing") into projects without due diligence.
The issues with Bonk Killer could have been avoided with security measures like:
1. Making proper research on the developers of certain projects, before investing.
2. Checking the tokenomics, and the token’s whale concentration (do the developers or whales hold senseless amounts of the tokens).
3. Reading through the smart contracts and whitepaper of the project beforehand, depending on technical know-how.
The Bonk Killer dashboard
It even says here, on the Bonk Killer dashboard, that the “authority of this token can FREEZE every token from being transferred.”
Overall, the crypto industry is no stranger to scams, and it might be a good idea to learn how to properly protect oneself in times of increased volatility in the crypto market.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information, but it will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.