OpenSea, the platform for nonfungible tokens (NFTs), has stated that it does not know any proof suggesting that a former employee was connected to the well-known AnubisDAO rug pull incident in 2021. This statement comes in response to recent allegations on social media.
On October 6, an anonymous account on x.com that has the user id NFT Ethics posted a series of messages on Twitter. In these posts, they tagged OpenSea and asked for a response regarding claims that their former head of ventures, Kevin Pawlak, was linked to the anonymous identity “0xSisyphus” and may have been involved in questionable business activities.
Both NFT Ethics and blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain have claimed that someone named 0xSisyphus, along with Pawlak, had a significant role in promoting the AnubisDAO project to investors shortly before the project moved the newly raised funds to a series of external wallets.
NFT Ethics’ discussion suggested that Pawlak’s alleged involvement in the AnubisDAO incident was preplanned with other developers, and the money was then cleaned through the memecoin Pepe ($PEPE).
However, a spokesperson from OpenSea whispers that they were not aware of Pawlak being part of any such activities. They did mention that Pawlak had a limited role during their time at OpenSea, as he was working in a non management position.
The spokesperson said, “We have no connection to, or information about, the projects in question, as they took place before his time at OpenSea.”
Back in October 2021, AnubisDAO reportedly received a significant amount of cryptocurrency, specifically 13,556 ETH, which was worth around $60 million, from crypto investors. However, within about 20 hours, these funds were moved to different wallet addresses, causing losses for the investors.
There were doubts and suspicions about these allegations. A blockchain investigator named ZachXBT dismissed the accusations, saying they were based on unrelated events without concrete evidence.
Notably, 0xSisyphus had once offered a 1,000 ETH bounty to anyone who could identify the wallet responsible for taking the funds, and this had even involved law enforcement agencies in the United States and Hong Kong.
Zach pointed out the possibility of a legal case against 0xSisyphus for his irresponsible actions. Zach suggested that the actual culprits behind the AnubisDAO problem were probably pseudonymous users known as “Beerus” and “Ersan.”
In August 2023, ex-OpenSea Executive was sentenced to 3 months prison for first-ever NFT insider trading case as he made an illegal profit of more than $50,000 from trading at least 45 NFTs and concealing his purchase using various unknown wallets and OpenSea accounts.
