Rug Pull eyewash sweeps the Crypto Assets world, millions of investors suffer.

In the Crypto Assets market, some people have become overnight millionaires by seizing opportunities, while others have lost everything due to malicious exits from project teams. Recently, the price of a certain token skyrocketed by 800% in just a few hours, attracting market attention. However, some analysts warn that this could be a carefully orchestrated eyewash. This type of fraud, known as "Rug Pull," is spreading on an industrial scale in the Crypto Assets field.

The Astonishing Scale of Rug Pull Projects

Through the contract analysis of major public chains, data shows that over 300,000 tokens exhibit varying degrees of Rug Pull behavior, with hundreds of "trap tokens" being launched on the network daily. On Ethereum, about 260,000 independent addresses are active in creating and promoting fraudulent tokens. These criminals utilize convenient token issuance tools and a large user base to precisely deploy bait. Although the average profit from a single scam project is around $1.65 million, the vast base results in total illegal earnings exceeding $500 billion.

The situation on other public chains is equally concerning. One public chain recorded 530 Rug Pull incidents, with total profits exceeding $10,000, involving 7,680 tokens and 4,640 fraudulent deployers. Another emerging public chain, although with a smaller data volume, has already had 4 contracts completely drained of liquidity.

Data shows that over 7 million investors have been directly affected by Rug Pull eyewash, meaning that the wealth of millions of individuals and families has suffered losses.

Types and Characteristics of Rug Pulls

Hard Rug Pull: Complete Eyewash

Hard Rug Pull is an extreme fraudulent tactic where scammers withdraw all liquidity from a project at once by pre-setting malicious code or exploiting vulnerabilities. For example, an address on a public blockchain is associated with 88 Rug coins and 6 drained liquidity pools, with a ratio as high as 1466.67%.

Some scam gangs even commit crimes simultaneously on multiple public chains, using cross-chain operations to evade tracking. Their actions cause token prices to plummet to zero in an instant, resulting in heavy losses for investors.

Many scam addresses exhibit characteristics of high-frequency offenses. For example, an address on a certain public blockchain is associated with 45 Rug Pull tokens and 37 drained liquidity pools. These addresses are like locusts, deploying tokens in bulk, quickly draining them, and then disappearing or changing identities to start over.

The life cycle of a large number of hard Rug Pull tokens is extremely short, with some lasting as little as 0 days or 1 day. This confirms the eyewash models such as "Pixiu Pan"—the tokens complete the scam shortly after being launched, giving investors no time to react or exit.

Soft Rug Pull: Boiling a Frog in Warm Water

Compared to the violent methods of hard Rug Pulls, soft Rug Pulls are more covert and insidious. They typically siphon off about 50% of the liquidity, creating the illusion of a "slow decline" or "temporary adjustment by the project team." Scammers may fabricate various reasons, such as "contract migration" or "system upgrade," causing some investors to miss the opportunity to exit in time due to a sense of luck or delayed reaction, ultimately suffering significant losses in the ongoing decline.

The deployment of Rug Pull tokens reached a new high in 2023

Data shows that the number of fraudulent tokens deployed on Ethereum reached a historic peak in 2023, exceeding 125,000, accounting for nearly 42.3% of the total in the past five years. However, in 2024, the deployment volume significantly decreased to about 69,000. Fraudulent activities exhibit a clear cyclicality, with the annual deployment volume of major public chains averaging close to 50,000 between 2021 and 2023. Notably, the average lifespan of scam contracts has shortened from 356 days in 2021 to just 3.8 days in 2025, which places higher demands on risk control models.

Prevention Suggestions

In the face of such large-scale eyewash, users need to be vigilant and understand the common tactics of Rug Pull:

1. Beware of promises of high returns
2. Treat anonymous team projects with caution
3. Check if it has been audited
4. Pay attention to liquidity locking situation
5. Be wary of excessive hype on social media
6. Stay vigilant towards coins that have rapidly surged in a short period of time.

Before investing, checking whether the contract is open source, whether it has been audited by a reputable auditing firm, whether the team background is verifiable, and the liquidity lock-up situation should be essential steps.

Conclusion

Rug Pull is no longer a scattered fraudulent act, but a mature black industrial chain. Hundreds of thousands of fraudulent tokens, hundreds of thousands of scam deployers, trillions of dollars in illegal gains, and over seven million victims; these numbers not only reflect the losses of individual investors, but also severely impact the trust foundation of the entire blockchain and Crypto Assets industry. Revealing the truth about Rug Pull is not only to remind investors to pay attention to risks, but also to promote the industry to establish a more complete regulatory system to maintain healthy market development.