Uniswap Fake Tokens With Liquidity

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Uniswap

Uniswap allows anyone to list a token. Therefore, there have been a massive number of scams with tokens named similarly to popular tokens. Scammers can set up a fake token, inject liquidity, and then dump quickly when anyone else buys. In this case, the token was not impersonating any legitimate project.

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

About Uniswap

"Uniswap is an Ethereum exchange, built using smart contracts and liquidity pools, as opposed to the order book of a traditional centralized exchange (CEX), such as Binance. With any Ethereum wallet, users can simply connect to the Uniswap application and effortlessly exchange ERC20 tokens without first sending them to the exchange platform account."

"[T]he development of Uniswap was facilitated by Vitalik Buterin’s idea for a decentralized exchange (DEX), which would involve an automated market maker. Actually, the protocol developer himself, Hayden Adams, at first tried to just practice development on Solidity, and later this hobby brought him several grants and $100 000 from the Ethereum Foundation. Now the project went far beyond just entertainment and became one of the most important components of the entire DeFi industry."

"Uniswap scams are not a new happening within the crypto space. Uniswap ETH-based decentralized exchange that offers every project a chance to air its views to the world. Notwithstanding, it’s one of the most misused platforms within the DeFi world, with more entities taking advantage of its name and services."

"Since its ‘V2’ overhaul in May, Uniswap has emerged as a cornerstone of the nascent DeFi ecosystem, with data published by Dune Analytics indicating that Uniswap comprises DeFi’s top pool by total users with 92,000."

"Scam tokens are a growing problem on the decentralized exchange and liquidity pool Uniswap — owing to the protocol’s open listing policy." "Uniswap, allows users to import any new token simply by pasting its address to the Uniswap’s swap menu."

"They create a fake contract with some dot-finance token name (maybe these are real shitcoin names, who knows), add ~15 ETH worth of liquidity and their newly minted tokens, wait for the price to go up as others buy the token and then promptly remove their liquidity at the new price of 1.3x what they put in. Bam, easy money. Make a new address, move some of your eth, deploy a new contract and start again. It takes less than an hour usually and in this case just 20 minutes to make 5 ETH."

"Here's where the interesting part comes in: people are always watching the blockchain for ways to make money, and one of those ways is watching new tokens that get deployed and get fresh liquidity injections on uniswap (method signature `0xf305d719`). In a neutral world this is a great plan, get in on new tokens before everyone else can catch on, get first dibs on new tokens and then sell when the masses arrive via the official token marketing push. But the market isn't neutral and clearly people deploy fake contracts and provide them with fake liquidity to take advantage of people who think they're getting in early."

"[T]here could be a lot of fake tokens on the Uniswap platform that mimic the legitimate projects and deceive users into trading their funds for a worthless scam token."

"With any token able to be listed on the platform’s drop-down menu simply by making a GitHub request, the platform’s users are increasingly calling for more stringent vetting to be introduced."

"Uniswap Labs said [July 23rd, 2021] that it was restricting access to dozens of tokens on its trading interface app, including synthetic assets meant to mirror the prices of stock-market giants like Facebook Inc. and Tesla Inc., as well exchange-traded funds such as Invesco’s so-called QQQ that tracks the Nasdaq 100 Index." However, there is no indication of anything done to restrict scam tokens.

"As Uniswap’s protocol is permissionless and both good and bad actors can list tokens through it, you will often see a warning for users to take the initiative in avoiding scammers."

"Rather than searching for tokens or pairs on Uniswap, you can verify you are selecting genuine ones by going via a trusted source, such as the CoinMarketCap or CoinGecko crypto tracking websites. On CoinMarketCap, for example, you can search for the token, select it, then navigate to the trading pairs towards the bottom of the page. If you then click on the relevant pair next to Uniswap, it will take you to the genuine Uniswap page and help you to avoid fake tokens. It also has an option at the top for MetaMask." "Explorers like Etherscan can also be used to check the vital analytics needed to make a more informed decision."

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

The background of the exchange platform, service, or individuals involved, as it would have been seen or understood at the time of the events.

Include:

• Known history of when and how the service was started.
• What problems does the company or service claim to solve?
• What marketing materials were used by the firm or business?
• Audits performed, and excerpts that may have been included.
• Business registration documents shown (fake or legitimate).
• How were people recruited to participate?
• Public warnings and announcements prior to the event.

Don't Include:

• Any wording which directly states or implies that the business is/was illegitimate, or that a vulnerability existed.
• Anything that wasn't reasonably knowable at the time of the event.

There could be more than one section here. If the same platform is involved with multiple incidents, then it can be linked to a main article page.

The Reality

This sections is included if a case involved deception or information that was unknown at the time. Examples include:

• When the service was actually started (if different than the "official story").
• Who actually ran a service and their own personal history.
• How the service was structured behind the scenes. (For example, there was no "trading bot".)
• Details of what audits reported and how vulnerabilities were missed during auditing.

What Happened

The specific events of the loss and how it came about. What actually happened to cause the loss and some of the events leading up to it.

Key Event Timeline - Uniswap Fake Tokens With Liquidity

Date	Event	Description
December 22nd, 2020 12:00:00 AM	Main Event	Expand this into a brief description of what happened and the impact. If multiple lines are necessary, add them here.

Total Amount Lost

The total amount lost has been estimated at $52,000 USD.

How much was lost and how was it calculated? If there are conflicting reports, which are accurate and where does the discrepancy lie?

Immediate Reactions

How did the various parties involved (firm, platform, management, and/or affected individual(s)) deal with the events? Were services shut down? Were announcements made? Were groups formed?

Ultimate Outcome

What was the end result? Was any investigation done? Were any individuals prosecuted? Was there a lawsuit? Was any tracing done?

Total Amount Recovered

There do not appear to have been any funds recovered in this case.

What funds were recovered? What funds were reimbursed for those affected users?

Ongoing Developments

What parts of this case are still remaining to be concluded?

Prevention Policies

There are no reported cases of centralized platforms listing fake tokens. Such an event would likely be short-lived. Platform operators have an inherent interest in protecting their users against fraud, and the insurance fund is available for platforms to use.