AnubisDAO, a new Dogecoin project, raised $60 million in funding but suddenly evaporated, suspected of being embezzled by internal employees!

The emergence of OlympusDAO has sparked a DeFi 2.0 trend recently. Its forked version, AnubisDAO, features similar functions to OlympusDAO but with a more appealing dog-themed design. During the initial token sale on Thursday, the 28th, it accumulated over $60 million in less than a day. However, these funds were swiftly transferred out within a very short period, and the perpetrator remains unidentified.

What is AnubisDAO?

Riding the recent wave of DeFi 2.0 and the frenzy surrounding dog coins, AnubisDAO describes itself as a fork of OlympusDAO, adopting the overall style of the ancient Egyptian death god Anubis. They initiated an initial token sale for their token named ANKH on 10/28.

During the token sale, AnubisDAO did not even have a website established, only existing on Twitter and Discord communities. Perhaps due to its resemblance to the recent surge of meme coins like dog-themed tokens, they managed to raise over 13,000 ETH, approximately $60 million, in just 20 hours.

Unexpectedly, the raised funds were swiftly transferred to other addresses, causing liquidity and token prices on the Copper Fair Launch Auction platform for ANKH to drop to zero instantly. EtherScan also labeled this address as AnubisDAO Liquidity Rug 3, indicating a high likelihood of a rug pull, with the funds being transferred multiple times.

Official Statements and Actions

AnubisDAO's core developer, Sisyphus, has been active on Twitter after the incident, suggesting that the fund embezzlement was likely an inside job by team members rather than a phishing attack. He offered to provide 1,000 ETH as a reward if the perpetrator returns the stolen funds.

with a high degree of certainty i can say the anubis rug probably was not a phishing attack and was instead a rogue team member

i am open to him returning only a portion of funds and backstopping the remainder with my personal money https://t.co/eJkbWRuiCs

— Sisyphus (@0xSisyphus) October 30, 2021

Sisyphus also detailed the entire incident, including the reasons for establishing AnubisDAO and its subsequent development, on Medium.

Below are the events related to the stolen funds, listed in chronological order based on Taiwan time:

1. 10/29 1:00 - 2:20

DAO members agreed to let Beerus, one of the members, deploy the LBP Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool on Copper.

2. 10/29 19:30 - 20:58

Beerus claimed to have opened a malicious link in a PDF that exposed the private key used to initiate the LBP. The "AnubisDAO Liquidity Rug 1" wallet may have been compromised during this time.

3. 10/29 20:58

About 4.5 hours before the LBP was completed, the "AnubisDAO Liquidity Rug 1" wallet withdrew 13,556 ETH. Six seconds later, the funds were transferred to "AnubisDAO Liquidity Rug 2."

4. 10/29 22:24

"AnubisDAO Liquidity Rug 2" transferred the funds to "AnubisDAO Liquidity Rug 3."

Following the incident, Sisyphus and team members contacted exchanges to blacklist addresses associated with the stolen funds and mitigate damages. Security researchers checked all emails received by the team and found no malicious content in any PDFs.

Sharp-eyed netizens noticed that Beerus mentioned the address of the stolen funds in a tweet in March, and his Twitter account was deactivated a minute later.

As of now, the stolen funds have not been returned. Beerus, the primary suspect, went to a Hong Kong police station on 10/30 to file a report and had a PC confiscated. AnubisDAO is cooperating with Chainalysis and law enforcement to resolve the issue promptly.