How GCD project got killed by a scam
Everyone loves a good scam story.
Last week, our project fell into a “Launchpad Honeypot” scam. The scammers took roughly $110,000 in crypto by duping us into believing we were interacting with the real Dao Maker and Polkastarter representatives.
Sit down, grab some popcorn, and read carefully.
Here’s the full story about what happened, why it happened, and how you can avoid becoming a victim. While $110K may not seem like a lot in the crypto world, it stings when it comes out of your pocket.
Our project is called Golden Crypto Dog ($GCD).
We started $GCD in late March after observing the explosive popularity of Meme coin trading. Our goal was to build a project to experiment with in-game utility. Since many meme coins are dog-themed, we could leverage this to raise awareness of preventative pet care because a lack of preventative care is a leading contributor to pet abandonment.
Unfortunately, there are bad actors on the internet, and even experienced teams can fall victim to these scams.
We’re not new to the crypto game.
I worked with the Ethereum Foundation in the early days and have founded two Unicorn companies in the FinTech space. My team members are a private equity lawyer and a guy who used to design aerospace systems. We’ve even built and launched a centralized exchange in the past.
We know how to execute, and we move quickly in this space.
Brand design, whitepaper, pitch deck, and project planning were completed within two weeks. When we felt things were good enough, we started contacting potential partners.
We had initial conversations with a few big-name crypto VCs. Yes, even VCs are secretly dabbling in meme coin investments. Simultaneously, we submitted applications to “initial dex offering (IDO)” launchpads, including Binance Launchpad, Dao Maker, and Polkastarter. After submitting our applications, I contacted people on LinkedIn to expedite the process.
That’s where I fucked up.
One of the people I came across on Linkedin was Manchu Koh. Manchu’s LinkedIn profile said he was the business development manager at DAO Maker (Strategic Partnership / Project Management). I reached out, and we began discussing the project IDO process.
Manchu told me it would take a lot of work to get accepted on Dao Maker. If accepted, we would have to pay an advance of $50,000 USDC, and they would hold back 10% of the total proceeds. I told him that was a lot of money and might not be possible. So that we could get started, he encouraged me to apply to Polkastarter (a smaller platform), promising that DAO Maker could collaborate on a launch once they accepted us.
And this is where things started getting crazy!
Manchu connected me with some folks he “knew from Polkastarter.” On April 5, we started talking with folks by the alias “Dae-Jung” and “Hana Khat.” They sent us an official-looking Polkastarter NDA, which was allegedly signed by Daniel Stockhaus — CEO (Polkastarter co-founder).
We were told that to raise on Polkastarter’s IDO launchpad, we needed to pay 30,000 to 50,000 Polkastarter tokens (POLS) in advance. These POLS were actually a deposit, locked up for 14 days from the launch. Additionally, Polkastarter would maintain 10% of all revenue.
Given that this was a lower barrier to launching an IDO, it seemed like a good path forward. We agreed to conduct an IDO on the Polkastarter Platform for a raise of $1M in USDT, scheduled to launch on May 2nd. The initial raise would serve as seed capital to raise funds from Dao Maker.
With these funds secured, our project could be fully funded.
After we signed the Polkastarter Launchpad Agreement (Screenshot), we also got the executed version with the CEO’s (supposed) signature.
With everything in order, on April 15th, I sent 46,000 POLs 0x977f01Cb7f56487AF896b349a0250de774BFEae8 worth ~$ $37,400.
And that’s how the scammers knew we were officially hooked.
Now that we were locked into Polkastarter, I contacted Manchu from “DAO Maker” to let him know our progress. He informed me that DAO Maker was ready to move forward with an IDO on their launchpad. We were approved for “a raise for 1,000,000 has been approved for an upfront fee of 50k USDC with a Hard cap of 3,000,000 + 20,000 SOL.”
After we confirmed with Polkastarter, I contacted DAO Maker Manchu again, and he confirmed that the DAO Maker agreement would be coming to us shortly. On April 16th, we received an agreement, and our lawyer immediately reviewed all the clauses. Like Polkastarter, we received an executed version with the CEO’s signature (Screenshot).
We were fully committed now that we had agreements with Polkastarter and DAO Maker. Unfortunately, they were still hungry for more money.
On Friday, April 19th, the scam team informed us that we would need to boost marketing services if we expected to hit the fundraising goal. They reminded me that if we didn’t hit our fundraising goal, we would lose the POLs that were deposited. We needed to engage several key opinion leaders (KOLs) before launch to do this.
This would cost an additional $12,000.
I told them we only had $8,000 to spend on this, and they offered to introduce us to several notable KOls, such as @MonstersCoins, @100xAltcoinGems, and @cryptoyuhanis. Throughout the weekend, we were introduced to the folks pretending to be these KOLs to secure their commitment.
On April 22, we had a call with a guy who went by the alias Miguel Pereira. He seemed to be sitting in front of a room fan, cooling himself off. He spoke slowly yet confidently, assuring us we were in a good position for a successful launch.
With these KOLs in place and our plans ready for both platforms, I sent the advanced payment 0xa01c8301e38c0e7333aAB00442D8A00d50ceAd57 on April 23, and we agreed that Dao Maker would start creating the marketing materials.
Next, we moved into the delay and distract phase of the scam.
We were moved into a channel with both teams. The intention was to start planning a double platform launch. We were told they would send some marketing materials to agree on messaging and awareness. Things were moving slowly, but we stayed in communication. Perhaps they were probing whether we had more money to spend expediting the campaigns.
We began pushing them to send over the Website and other marketing materials as soon as possible (Screenshot and Polkastarter marketing material sample). Then they told us one by one that there wouldn’t be enough time, and they needed to push the IDO launch dates to May 15th to guarantee the launch’s success.
After complaining about the project delays, Manchu informed me that his team was prepared to raise the SOL hardcap from 20,000 to 40,000. This meant that I would need to pay an additional 10,000 USDC, which I did on April 23 0xbae284e17c948fab4f004e00044b97cd1fcc841a5e561d99c22a78709edbfde7.
Simultaneously, Hana informed us that the Dao Maker folks had reached out and convinced them to raise our hardcap to $2M, and we would need to pay an additional 23K POLS; there was no doubt about the process. She started getting increasingly demanding when we told her we didn’t have the funds to pay.
This is when I started to think something was wrong.
From our experience, no platform has ever asked to increase the Hardcap or request more deposits. I contacted Monster Coins, one of the KOLs, directly on X. We had been chatting frequently on the Telegram channel, but I wanted to see if this was the same person. As I suspected, Monster Coins wasn’t even aware we existed.
And that’s when I knew we’d been scammed.
As soon as I pointed out the situation, I received the following message:
Hello xxx, as I write this to you, it is with no pleasure or happiness but with the deepest gratitude and somewhat sadness, I am sorry to inform you that I or any of the persons you have encountered through me are not members of the Polkastarter or Daomaker’s team. We did not do this just to exploit you but for the solace of us and those taking the impact in this Israeli and Palestine war that has been raging for a while now. So many of us have been rendered homeless and without shelter for months now with little to no foreign aid getting to us like the Ukrainians have been receiving from the West. It is because of this we had to create an avenue to survive and this was the well thought out methods to meet ends meet, provide food, shelter and clothing for us who have been displaced because of this war. Your funding will go a long way to help a lot of people, children and women alike. We know this is not the right way but after pursuing the right channels endlessly with no success or luck, we had to adapt and this was our adaptation. I am very sorry to have caused you this stress and pain but we just had to, in our situation and I have actually come to like the kind of person you are Mr xxx, I have never had to explain myself to anyone else before, we just sever ties but in good practice I felt it worthy to let you know of the cause.
Lastly, I know your project is going to be a great one, it has all the indications to show it will be very successful, I will leave you with the real persons in charge of these launchpads and how not to fall victim for something like this in the future. Always verify any personnel you are communicating with through the official twitter page, and be sure to look closely at the domain names from where you receive emails from that it matches the exchange/launchpad’s website with whom you are communicating with. With this you should be good to go to avoid anything like this again. I have basically strip myself bare and told you things that I am not supposed to tell you which will hamper any future endeavours for us but I just believe is the best I can do at this time. Once again I’m sorry for the time delayed and stress you’ve been put through. I’m sure you will still go on to do great things. Bye for now and good luck in your future endeavours
P. S. If you feel it in your heart and wish to assist the movement or help those who have been handicapped by this raging battle. I’ll leave a wallet, this is not mandatory or necessary but just if. Here it is. Thanks and now we’ll be severing ties. Goodbye and may Allah reward you.
Here’s the screenshot….. (Manuch_Last message)
We still believe in the crypto community.
After reading this and similar posts, those who aren’t actively in the crypto community may get the impression that the entire community is a scam. However, that’s just not true. There are some good, honest, and innovative people working in crypto. Personally, we feel the meme coin madness we’ve recently experienced is the start of something great.
People are starting to feel the freedom to be silly.
People who need a creative outlet have been given the opportunity to explore their inner creativity. With the rise of AI, new design tools, and the ability to spread your thoughts through social platforms, this is starting to crack the barriers that have historically controlled mass communication channels.
Unfortunately, bad actors are everywhere, and they are exploiting this new reality.
It would have been better for these criminals just to say: “You got scammed. But, to add insult to injury, they use real social problems to justify their actions. We’re not sure if they are actually Palestinian, but this potentially creates tension for the Palestinians, who are very likely not involved in this scam.
LinkedIn is typically viewed as a safe place with serious professionals. Unfortunately, over the last two to three years, it seems to have become a honeypot for scammers waiting to trap fresh victims.
Here’s how you can avoid being scammed by bad actors.
- Always verify the people you are dealing with are who they say they are.
- Look closely at domain names in the emails you receive. This is a primary means scammers trick you into trusting them.
- Never send money to unverified 3rd parties.
- New innovations often serve as breeding grounds for bad actors; be aware and do your research carefully.
- Focus on the long-term vision. Short-term get-money-quick schemes like DEX launchpad fundraising events are often too good to be true.
Now, we have a broader vision.
What started as something silly is driving meaning. We believe in our mission to help pets, and this lesson reminded us of the importance of proof of identity. That’s why we are pivoting the business to focus fully on the underlying social aspect.
Our new focus is to become the WoldCoin of animals. WildCoin is on a mission to create a digital identification platform to track pets, farm animals, and wildlife.
The WildCoin digital identity will provide traceability, proof of ownership, vaccination, and pet preventative care. Further, it will provide historical traceability for farm animals to give consumers better information on food and material supply.
More information will be provided as the project progresses. We’re excited about this new direction and hope you will join us in spreading the message.
We need you to help make this project a success. Specifically, please share this article to expand our reach, and follow us on Twitter to receive updates.
Ex-GoldenCryptoDog team
Now we are WILDCOIN ;)
