[ This article is a reprint from Publish0x, we own the rights to it. ]
According to Coindesk, "The Macalinao brothers used a web of bogus identities to create the illusion of a dev community, juicing value on the Saber protocol and Solana blockchain."
From an unpublished blog post and a helpful insider, the entire scheme of the Macalinao's was unraveled. Mainly, several if not most of the projects on the Saber protocol were operated by a single person, hyper-inflating the value of Solana for a prolonged period of time.
"Macalinao [...] managed to inflate the capitalization of the Solana token to $10.5 billion dollars, of which $7.5 billion dollars attributable to Saber and Sunny Aggregator" (Source: sparkchronicles.com)
Was this what drove SOL to $240? It might be.
The brothers started the Saber protocol on Solana and without much trouble created an artificial dev community. They created fake projects and billions of dollars of invested crypto moved onto Saber. There was even double counting of investments, further increasing hype upon the established illusions and lies.
To their shame, the founders appear not to have any regrets nor do they admit any fault -- that will have to change when they go to court in the US. So far, the only admission is that they did indeed create about 20. That's right, they created 20 fake projects on the protocol. Their Twitter is still online despite this revelation.
Next time you go shopping for NFTs or for lucrative returns on LPs (whatever the blockchain), remember: high finance criminals are not beyond creating many rugpull projects and 'visionary' websites to siphon your crypto to their personal wallets. And once caught, they won't admit to their crime.
The draft speaks for itself, confirmed by an insider:
You can read the article here or watch the summary of the scheme with Coindesk's Tracy Wang:
Young, mostly male and unscrupulous individuals drawn to crypto crime due to 'relative' anonymity
Thankfully, not everyone can stand to commit high financial crime and the person or person(s) who leaked the document are sleeping soundly at night. However, The Macalinao's will be followed by their newly-acquired blockchain sleuth and crypto journalist crowd until the day they retire from crypto. On the web, nothing is forgotten.
And on the blockchain, the unscrupulous individuals drawn to crime better respect the blockchain or it will bite back.
Addendum on Solana in late 2022
Solana, sadly, is further devalued by such a serious attack on trust. If Sol Labs' arbitrary seizure of a high value address is not enough to alarm you, I hope this Solana tale does. We fully expect further crippling issues with Solana into 2023 and urge extreme caution building out on it long term if you are a dev.
Ethereum is a sounder bet or, frankly, any other chain with clear, transparent practices (open source) and firm, egalitarian DAO governance. The prolonged outtages and inability to meet a consistent TPS, Solana paints a dismal vision and an even poorer execution upon that vision. For NFT's it could be the end if Solana blockchain is halted--for farms and pools, kaput.