Vitalik: ZKasino has no ZK at all, just a gimmick

ZKasino, which was exposed by the community for a fraud case, has still not mentioned a word about whether users can retrieve their pledged ETH, causing Vitalik to take notice and contemplate deeper reasons. The question arises if zero-knowledge technology ZK has become a widely known gimmick, leading to the current events.

Background: ZKasino Controls User Assets

ZKasino is a project focused on gambling games, originally built on zkSync but later transitioned to using Arbitrum Stack for Layer2. It encourages users to stake ETH before the mainnet launch to participate in marketing and earn ZKAS tokens.

Unexpectedly, the team recently modified the whitepaper and website content, changing the rule to require users to stake $30 million worth of ETH to purchase ZKAS tokens at a discounted rate and lock them up, effectively turning it into a forced IDO. This move sparked backlash and demands from the community.

ZKasino Scam: Users Forced to Hold and Lock ZKAS Tokens for a Year after Staking ETH

In a bizarre turn of events, ZKasino has not only not exit-scammed in recent days but has continued to promote the project on Twitter, ignoring all requests from users to retrieve their ETH. Ironically, the team announced today that they are reopening the cross-chain bridge, but it can only be accessed using ZKAS tokens.

Community members express frustration and state their intention to take legal action.

Vitalik's Reflection: ZK Has Become a Market Buzzword

Vitalik points out that the only connection ZKasino has with zero-knowledge proof technology is being originally built on zkSync, and now even "ZK" has become mainstream enough to be a keyword used by fraudulent projects.

Some community members claim that ZKasino managed to deceive everyone, including some institutional investors, by quickly setting up a chain using Arbitrum tools in just a few minutes.

The case of ZKasino, similar to recent trends like AI and DePIN, shows how users and market funds flow with hot keywords rather than focusing on the underlying value and use cases, reflecting the speculative sentiment in the current market.