Empower AI Token Rug Pull

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Empower AI Market History

Empower AI launched a token along with a website, Telegram, and Twitter account. Their token started trending with a large amount of volume, however the token was set up such that it could not be sold by most users. In the end, the liquidity of the smart contract was drained, netting the token creator 66.44 ETH, minus whatever their cost was of setting up the token. The website homepage and Twitter went offline. The Telegram and Docs section of the website remain online.

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46]

About Empower AI

"Empower AI is a decentralized non-custodial lending and borrowing protocol."

"Permissionless Infrastructure for Smart Money Management. We are the leading gateway to smart on-chain money managers, bringing maximised yields and optimal..."

"Empower AI Protocol is building the infrastructure to empowering the next generation of billions of investors to access sophisticated on-chain trading strategies in a fully non-custodial, trustless manner. We envision a future where all blockchain investors have access to sophisticated automated strategies on a scale comparable to traditional finance platforms."

"Empower AI Protocol brings its proprietary quantitative strategies on-chain, creating positions within narrow liquidity ranges. These constantly monitor price movements and strategically triggering rebalances that reduce Impermanent Loss while maximizing generated fees."

"Uniswap V3 brought in new ways of managing liquidity, yet we haven't seen any consumer-focused vaults adopting impartial strategies for this.

The key reason is the added incentives offered by these vaults. When a vault provides extra rewards beyond what's earned from the usual market-making activities, most investors prefer to channel their funds through the vault to capture these bonuses. This makes the vault a more appealing option compared to directly participating in the market-making process.

The dynamics of that will be that the vault will become a significant % of the pool. Hence, if the vault strategist were to remove liquidity and rebalance the exposure by swapping on the pool then there would be massive slippage as the vault itself was the significant % of the pool.

This is where we bring in our active liquidity management infrastructure which will be paradigm-shifting in making defi efficient."

"Our AMM vaults provide infrastructure for market makers and trading partners to run a wide array of strategies on top of concentrated..."

"We plan to merge the best features of both AMMs (Automated Market Makers) and RFQs (Request for Quote model) in a trustless and non-custodial"

"MAX TOTAL SUPPLY 100,000,000 EMPAI"

"50k+ buy volume detected Name: #EMPAI 

0xf445a2E240C73cFaaf0654202157F9c5457E5F73

└─ Contract holds 0.023% of Token supply!"

"The price of Empower AI (EMPAI) on Ethereum has dropped by 100%. A whale 0xE4808...f3bA has dumped 1,000,000,000,000 EMPAI for about 66.44 WETH (valued at around $23,750)."

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 - Empower AI Token Rug Pull
Date Event Description
April 10th, 2024 3:02:00 PM MDT Dexed Trending Alert Service Dexed_Io reports a trend alert on the EMPAI token.
April 10th, 2024 3:14:00 PM MDT DexTools Update A report that the EMPAI token has been added to DexTools.
April 10th, 2024 4:38:00 PM MDT Buy Volume Tweet A 50k+ buy volume signal is detected on the token, with a report of over 30 ETH in liquidity being established.
April 10th, 2024 6:04:47 PM MDT Large Purchase A large purchase of more than 5.14 ETH is made on the token.
April 10th, 2024 6:47:00 PM MDT Cryptosymbool Report Cryptosymbool reports that EMPAI is a honeypot.
April 10th, 2024 8:22:35 PM MDT Another Large Purchase This one is only 1.65 ETH.
April 10th, 2024 8:38:00 PM MDT Paul Can't Sell Paul (thecryptoguyog) reports being unable to sell the token.
April 11th, 2024 2:42:00 AM MDT Unable To Sell Viết Cường Nguyễn (user VitCngNguy17228) reports being unable to sell the token and warns others not to buy it.
April 11th, 2024 4:27:35 AM MDT Whale Dumping Token One trillion EMPAI is dumped for 66.44 wrapped ethereum.
April 11th, 2024 4:35:00 AM MDT PeckShield Alert PeckShield posts an alerta about the whale dumping the token.
April 17th, 2024 3:23:11 PM MDT Deployment Not Found Captures of the associated website report an error where the deployment could not be found.

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 $238,000 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?

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.

References

  1. ↑ SlowMist Hacked - SlowMist Zone (May 1, 2024)
  2. ↑ https://www.dextools.io/app/cn/ether/pair-explorer/0x27d6f3d95e4888e1eacd19b200abec9089153a44?t=1713102750687 (May 8, 2024)
  3. ↑ Ethereum Transaction Hash (Txhash) Details | Etherscan (May 8, 2024)
  4. ↑ Empower AI (EMPAI) Token Tracker | Etherscan (May 8, 2024)
  5. ↑ Wayback Machine (May 9, 2024)
  6. ↑ Telegram: Contact @empowerai (May 9, 2024)
  7. ↑ @empowerai_x Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  8. ↑ @empowerai_x Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  9. ↑ @DextoolsUpdate Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  10. ↑ @snipeguruvol Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  11. ↑ @russ5555555 Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  12. ↑ @dexed_eth Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  13. ↑ @VitCngNguy17228 Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  14. ↑ Empower AI live price : EMPAI/WETH - Dexed.io - The Degen Dashboard (May 9, 2024)
  15. ↑ Ethereum Transaction Hash (Txhash) Details | Etherscan (May 9, 2024)
  16. ↑ Ethereum Transaction Hash (Txhash) Details | Etherscan (May 9, 2024)
  17. ↑ @PeckShieldAlert Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  18. ↑ @Bojo0x Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  19. ↑ @Bilaxy_exchange Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  20. ↑ @Bilaxy_exchange Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  21. ↑ @Bilaxy_exchange Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  22. ↑ @web3_watchdog Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  23. ↑ @ChainAegis Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  24. ↑ Empower AI | Empower AI (May 9, 2024)
  25. ↑ Empower AI | Empower AI (May 9, 2024)
  26. ↑ Strategy Details | Empower AI (May 9, 2024)
  27. ↑ @DavidBacZit Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  28. ↑ @CoinspeedrunBot Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  29. ↑ @crypto_rick_gm Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  30. ↑ @frog_elon63336 Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  31. ↑ @bot_hype13170 Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  32. ↑ @TokensEthereum Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  33. ↑ @FXCryptoBots Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  34. ↑ @blackhat_TM Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  35. ↑ @Cryptosymbool Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  36. ↑ @troymc23 Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  37. ↑ @Muhamma73022712 Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  38. ↑ @whisperchad Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  39. ↑ @DegenFinders Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  40. ↑ @cmethbot Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  41. ↑ @atlantes_io Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  42. ↑ @zBischoffz Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  43. ↑ @Alazioo Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  44. ↑ @SeanT3621 Twitter (May 9, 2024)
  45. ↑ EMPAI/WETH - Empower AI Price on Uniswap V2 (Base) | GeckoTerminal (May 9, 2024)
  46. ↑ https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/2024-04-11-empower-ai-rug-pull-100-6625821571938 (May 9, 2024)
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