DeTrade Fund

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DeTrade

A fake video from a purported CEO, an audited smart contract, a business registration, and news articles published through Yahoo Finance, all gave this the appearance of legitimacy.

In reality, the hacker immediately took the funds and disappeared.

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

About DeTrade

"DeTrade is building a platform where token holders own a fund which grows from arbitrage, frontrunning and trading opportunities in the cryptocurrency markets. DeTrade intends to do this by creating an arbitrage and frontrunning bot, which is currently in development. Initially, 50% profits generated from this bot after launch will be distributed among the holders of DeTrade token in ETH." "DeTrade.Fund is all set to release its centralized exchange arbitrage bots this month, shortly after conducting the crowdfunding in the upcoming weeks, necessary to kickstart first of its kind, a community-driven arbitrage and frontrunning fund."

"DeTrade Fund can certainly become one of the most profitable arbitrage companies in the industry, given our experience and knowledge in this space," said Mark Jensen, CEO of the company. "DeTrade Fund allows anyone to get exposure and benefit from arbitrage and front-running opportunities in the cryptocurrency market. Opportunities were previously exploited only by large players of the space. This is a fund for the people, by the people."

"DeTrade Fund, which would purportedly allow any Ethereum user to participate in arbitrage (a trading method often relegated to advanced funds), raised 1,450 ETH in a pre-sale." "It garnered traction within some segments of the Ethereum community because the company was registered in the U.K., was audited by a reputable Ethereum auditor, and seemingly had a “doxxed” team." "Its address, 36 Ballards Lane, London, United Kingdom, N3 1XW is a mall. The company is registered by Mark Jensen, whose address is 94 Holborn Viaduct, London England EC1A 2BN."

"It seemed safe. [One investor] had investigated the coin's development team on LinkedIn, and watched a video of its CEO laying out a roadmap for the coin's future. A newswire piece published on Yahoo touted DeTrade's technology as advanced enough to disrupt cryptocurrency."

The project "vanished with 1450ETH a few hours before listing." "The team deleted their social media profiles and ran away with the money."

"The touted technology behind it wasn't real. Nothing about the project was. The LinkedIn profiles were fake, and the video of its CEO was a deepfake created with AI. It was a scam. Those behind it, operating in the unregulated world of crypto, vanished."

"Look at the video of the “CEO” of DeTrade Fund which just rugged.. the audio is a little delayed because of screen record but you can tell that the video is glitchy and hes an AI. This needs to be shared to everybody so we can be more careful in the future."

"The team appeared to be non-anonymous, with public Linkedin profiles, a publicly registered company, a Twitch profile and a video where the “CEO” Mark Jensen, spoke to the community. The video has quickly become famous on crypto Twitter with the community suspecting it was a deep-fake used by crypto hackers. Another theory circulating around the community is that the hackers hired an actor to impersonate the CEO."

"Several hours later and probably because someone was able to trace the misappropriated funds, 70% of the stolen $ETH was sent back to investors via internal transactions."

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 - DeTrade Fund

Date	Event	Description
December 11th, 2020	Main Event	Expand this into a brief description of what happened and the impact. If multiple lines are necessary, add them here.

Technical Details

This section includes specific detailed technical analysis of any security breaches which happened. What specific software vulnerabilities contributed to the problem and how were they exploited?

Total Amount Lost

The total amount lost has been estimated at $800,000 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?

General Prevention Policies

This is an illustration of the importance of having a framework that's reasonable for entrepreneurs to bring forth ideas under the oversight of regulators.

While in this case, it was an investment, similar means could be used to launch trading platforms and therefore oversight to make sure that individuals launching platforms are real people is highly necessary.

Individual Prevention Policies

No specific policies for individual prevention have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as an individual, check our Prevention Policies for Individuals guide.

Platform Prevention Policies

Policies for platforms to take to prevent this situation have not yet been selected in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as a financial service, check our Prevention Policies for Platforms guide.

Regulatory Prevention Policies

No specific regulatory policies have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of regulatory policies that can prevent loss, check our Prevention Policies for Regulators guide.