The BALD Coin Enigma: ZachXBT Digs Deep

Cryptocurrency sleuth ZachXBT has come forward with information that could potentially unveil the identity of the enigmatic BALD Coin deployer. The revelation emerged in a tweet last Thursday, where ZachXBT pointed to a transaction made from the BALD deployer's wallet address back in 2021. 

The recipient of this transaction was crypto investor Mike McDonald, who claims to have received $50,000 from the mysterious wallet after winning a bet with a Twitter user named "@milkyway16eth." 

Milkyway had previously mentioned BALD multiple times, even verifying its legitimacy and inability to be upgraded.

According to ZachXBT, the relationship between BALD Coin deployer, Milkyway, and Mike is as follows:

There is now speculation that @milkyway16eth might be the person behind the BALD Coin scam. The Twitter account of Milkyway is private now.

BALD was a meme coin launched on Coinbase's Layer 2 testnet, Base. What made it stand out was its meteoric rise in value, shooting up a mind-boggling 4,000,000% in just 24 hours, with an estimated value of $68 million. 

Much of this rapid growth was attributed to hefty investments made by the deployer, who infused a staggering $12 million on the first day. Additionally, their decision to buy BASE further boosted the token's price after initially stagnating.

BALD did not have a user interface at the time, making it impossible to bridge the contract, thus making the whole affair even more mysterious. The only bridge available allowed transactions to move back to the Ethereum blockchain in one direction. Despite these limitations, the coin garnered enormous attention and investments.

However, when the inevitable rug pull occurred, the deployer managed to siphon off an estimated $23 million from the project. Even though the deployer had made substantial investments in the token, they still pocketed around $5.9 million in profit from the rug pull.

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Speculations Pointed Towards FTX and SBF

The aftermath of this rug pull prompted investigations, leading to potential connections with Alameda Research, a sister company of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

However, factors such as SBF's limited access to technology and other evidence indicated that someone else within Alameda Research might be the true culprit. FrankResearcher pointed out that substantial funds flow with Coinbase worth $40 million, so it's unlikely for the deployer to maintain a fake KYC without being caught, which makes SBF unlikely to be involved.