Base, Coinbase’s new layer 2, has been fully operational for a week and has already seen an influx of bad actors. In the most recent incident, crypto lender SwirlLend, formerly active in Base and Linea, apparently committed an exit scam, also known as a rug pull.
PeckShield reported in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on August 16 that SwirlLend transferred around $289,500 worth of cryptocurrency from Base. Later 94 Ether (ETH) were also transferred from Linea, linking the crypto to Ethereum. It created a new token and laundered 253.2 ETH through the Tornado Cash crypto mixer.
SwirlLend has closed its social media accounts and website. Its total value locked in Base dropped from $784,300 to $49,200.
Related: Coinbase layer-2 network Base hits 136,000 daily active users
The SwirlLend rug pull comes two days after Base project RocketSwap, a decentralized exchange, experienced $865,000 in leverage. Before that – and even before the platform was officially open to the public – the BALD coin lost 85% of its value on July 31, after the developer “Added/removed 2 sided liquidity and bought.”
Scam Alert
Be aware of suspicious activities involved @SwirlLenda Linea and Base lend/borrow protocol.
A background investigation showed that a team member impersonated our CSO months ago, by adopting his Telegram username and profile picture. This unethical…
— Official SolidProof.io (@SolidProof_io) August 5, 2023
There could be more trouble ahead for Base, judging from a blog post by crypto trading watch service Solidus Labs. The company found more than 500 tokens in the Base scam, it reported. Among them are 300 tokens with hidden functions to create an unlimited number of tokens. Also, 70 has hidden transaction fees and 60 does not allow buyers to resell their tokens.
Scammers have made off with $2 million worth of crypto so far, according to Solidus. That’s in addition to “soft” rug pulls like BALD, which Solidus Labs estimates cost users $5.2 million.
Coinbase announced the launch of its Ethereum-based base in February. It started onboarding developers on July 13 and opened the platform to users on August 9.
Coinbase did not respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.
Magazine: QuickSwap founder: L2s is the path to mass adoption
