Non-fungible token (NFT) platform OpenSea says it is not aware of any evidence suggesting a former employee is involved in the infamous 2021 AnubisDAO carpet-pulling following new allegations on social media.
In an October 6 thread on business transactions”. “
1/ Dear @OpenSea, what do you think about the fact that your Head of Ventures, Kevin Pawlak, has been involved in several highly questionable business transactions (e.g. Anubis) and pump & dump schemes under his pseudonymous identity @0xSisyphus (& 0xMagellan) ? pic.twitter.com/GzIVLJirLE
— NFT Ethics (@NFTethics) October 6, 2023
Both NFT Ethics and blockchain analytics account Lookonchain claimed that 0xSisyphus, and thus Pawlak, played a key role in bringing the AnubisDAO project to the attention of investors shortly before the project transferred the freshly raised funds to a series of third-party wallets.
The NFT Ethics thread attempted to explain that Pawlak’s alleged role in the AnubisDAO tapestry was premeditated with other developers and laundered the proceeds through the memecoin Pepe (PEPE).
However, an OpenSea spokesperson told Cointelegraph that they were not aware of Pawlak’s involvement in such activities, but also noted that Palwak had “limited scope” while at the company.
“Kevin is a former employee who left the company in June 2023. His scope was limited while at OpenSea, where he worked in a non-management role. We are not aware of his involvement in the projects in question.”
“Additionally, we have no connection or information regarding the projects in question as they occurred prior to his time at OpenSea,” the company representative said.
In October 2021, AnubisDAO raised 13,556 ETH – worth $60 million at the time – from crypto investors. However, about 20 hours later, the money was sent to different wallet addresses, resulting in an immediate loss for the investors.
Blockchain sleuth ZachXBT also seemed to throw cold water on the accusations, saying the thread was “one of the most mid-curve” things he had read.
He added that much of the thread seemed to make many assumptions about 0xSisyphus’ role in the alleged carpet pulling, using “unrelated events with no facts.”
That thread is one of the most midcurve things I’ve read. They make a lot of assumptions about unrelated events without facts.
FixedFloat does tons of volume and the same with the other exchanges mentioned. Here is the source address of the April 2023 FixedFloat insider PEPE that I am purchasing… https://t.co/0kG2M7DNVi
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) September 29, 2023
It is also believed that 0xSisyphus once offered a bounty of 1,000 ETH to anyone who could identify the wallet address that emptied the pool, and called in law enforcement in both the United States and Hong Kong, which would further cast doubt on the new allegations can raise.
Related: AnubisDAO’s 13.5K ETH washes away on Tornado Cash
‘Is Sisyphus guilty of gross negligence for lying about the Anubis team’s multisig? Absolutely 100%. A civil case is likely possible for the victims,” Zach wrote.
Zach noted that negligence in this case is very different from stealing money from one’s own project. “[As far as I know] Sisyphus was the only team member who spoke to the team members [Department of Homeland Security].”
“Do you really think they didn’t look at him first and monitor his activities?” Zach asked.
Zach explained that the two actors most likely responsible for the money lost during the AnubisDAO scandal were two pseudonymous users known only as ‘Beerus’ and ‘Ersan’.
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