YFDexF Finance Exit Scam

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YFDexF

YFDexF was one platform which you could have afforded to miss out on. After advertising extensively on social media with free give-aways for retweets and hash tags, the project then disappeared with investor funds.

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

About YFDexF

The "DeFi project Yfdexf.Finance" was a "new liquidity mining pool DeFi project". "YFDEX promoted themselves on Medium and other websites for two days, after launching on Sept 8 and describing itself as “a powerful player of industry (sic) that breaks down all barriers.”"

"To attract investment in crypto-currency in its protocol, the cash pool project conducted advertising campaigns. Yfdexf.Finance was thus able to make itself known to potential investors on Twitter and Telegram." "Yfdexf.Finance, ran an advertising campaign on various social media platforms including Twitter and Telegram for two days to convince people to put money in the project." "During the two-day advertisement, the new liquidity mining pool promised giveaways to Twitter users for retweets and hashtags."

"YFDEX is the FIRST and LEGIT protocol to get rewarded on your TrippleStaking," said the ad campaign posted on Telegram. "Many were lured to new DeFi tokens after seeing the increase in value of other DeFi tokens like YFI." "Many investors rushed to leverage their funds on the new yield farming protocol in line with a trend that’s been prevalent in the second half of 2020, despite multiple warnings from investors and financial advisors." "[T]he project reportedly noted that the pre-sale was to last only four hours “until the hard cap is reached… [and any] unsold tokens would be burned immediately.”"

"What happened here is also another reminder to all a[ir]drop and giveaway hunters out there to be careful in what you are sharing in exchange for some rewards. You might not realized it yet, but you are also helping these scammers. Yfdexf’s team organized many giveaways to create hype and many of these hunters just joined without even thinking about what they are promoting."

"Binance, as the fastest global exchange to list yield farming protocol tokens, has been in the spotlight for allegedly boosting the credibility of scam tokens with their listings. CEO Changpeng Zhao however, defended the exchange’s position, stating that investors have a responsibility to do their own research before investing in a DeFi token."

"Over 200 transactions of the token took place on decentralized exchange protocol, Uniswap with the price of the transactions increasing to as high as 0.1ETH ($36.06 per token) at some point. The last recorded transaction swapped 10 YFDEX tokens for just 0.002ETH ($0.73), showing how quickly the price has plummeted in the last 48 hours."

"After a two-day campaign, the organizers of disappeared from $ 20 million in user funds." "Yfdexf's official website and its tweets were erased." "[I]ts official website, Medium story, Twitter, and Telegram accounts that were used to lure investors have since been deleted." "There were attempts made to track down its cover up efforts but it had cautiously deleted crucial details that would expose it." "[S]ome 49 addresses hold the now “worthless” YFDEX."

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 - YFDexF Finance Exit Scam

Date	Event	Description
September 10th, 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 $20,000,000 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

One of the challenges with platforms created by unknown individuals is that they typically cannot be held to account. Funds stored with access by a single person, especially an unknown individual, are generally the worst place to put your money.

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.