Astrology-Themed Lucky Star Currency Rugs Users, Drains $1.1 Million From Users

Lucky Star Currency (LSC), an astrology-themed non-fungible token (NFT) project on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), has recently conducted a significant exit scam, making off with over $1 million, according to blockchain security firm Certik.

The project, which claimed to be founded by astrologists, focused on NFT services, featuring an NFT marketplace and an Award Center. It was particularly marketed towards the Chinese crypto investment market.

The exit scam unfolded when the project's deployer account initiated the 'withdrawToken' function on both the NFTMerge and AwardCenter contracts, resulting in the removal of over $1 million worth of LSC tokens.

These tokens were swiftly exchanged for Binance USD (BUSD) stablecoin and sent to another account.

The attacker's address, identified as 0x9Ef72Ee68a7c841986A0C60e0FDbAE4e27446Deb, removed over 1.6 million LSC from the AwardCenter contract and an additional 1.4 million LSC from the NFTMerge contract.

Certik discovered that the compromised contracts, drained during the exit scam, had been promoted as the official Lucky Star Currency platforms on Telegram. Furthermore, the attacking account was identified as the deployer for the AwardCenter contract, adding another layer of complexity to the fraudulent activity.

Before the rug pull, Lucky Star Currency had been actively promoted on Chinese news app Toutiao and the Q&A platform Zhihu. The project's marketing efforts extended to social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter) under the username @AstrAstrol75591, as well as a Telegram channel. However, as of October 9, the project's website and user interface were offline.

In a second instance, AegisWeb3, a security protocol developed by blockchain security firm PeckShield, also highlighted the rug pull, noting that the value of LSC plummeted by a staggering 97%. The exit address, 0x9Ef, executed the fraudulent operation by dumping 3 million LSC tokens, securing a profit of approximately $1.11 million in BUSD. The funds were subsequently transferred to another address, 0x23f, complicating efforts to trace the ill-gotten gains.

The crypto community has seen a surge in rug pulls, where malicious actors exploit investors' enthusiasm for new projects. In this case, Lucky Star Currency's token value collapsed by 96.78%, dropping from $2.88 to $0.04 and currently trading at $0.0303 with a market cap of $296K.

This exit scam adds to the growing list of crypto frauds originating in China, with previous incidents like the $100 million hack of Multichain protocol in June raising concerns. Given the pseudonymous nature of blockchain transactions, victims of such scams often find it challenging to seek recourse. The shutting down of Lucky Star Currency's website, apps, and social channels further complicates the situation for affected users.