Sep 2020 - LV Finance Exit Scam - $Unknown (Global)
"The organizers of LV Finance described the project as a "community-owned DeFi ecosystem" based on the Ethereum blockchain." "In the near future they promised to launch genesis-farming." "The organizers of the DeFi project LV Finance faked the results of audits in order to steal investors’ money, according to the analytical company SlowMist."
"[A]lmost all DeFi cryptocurrencies first appear on Uniswap . However, the DEX does not have a strict listing procedure. Anyone can issue a token and add it to Uniswap. In this regard, the scammers take advantage of the "profit hunt" of the traders and try to download them coins without real projects and development teams."
"After investors deposited their funds, they found they could not withdraw. The team has since disappeared, and the website was down at the time of writing."
"On September 20th, according to the intelligence of the slow fog area, the Ethereum mining project LV Finance project was suspected to have gone away. In less than an hour, 4 million people were transferred away. The project used fake audit websites and provided false audit information to trick investors Invest and run away when the amount in the fund pool is large enough after a period of time."
"On September 19, a Twitter user reported he was unable to withdraw his funds from LV Finance. He tried to contact the project through its Telegram channel, however, he was blocked by the administrators of the channel. According to SlowMist, the project organizers have disappeared shortly after raising funds from users. The official site of the LV Finance project is offline at the moment and the social network accounts of the project have been removed."
"Currently, the project website lv.finance is no longer accessible." "[S]ocial media accounts have been deleted."
Further Analysis
This fraud appears to have been executed so quickly that no record of the site or even a logo are subsequently available.
How Could This Have Been Prevented?
Having some level of oversight and approval on projects can give consumers a tool to avoid completely fraudulent projects.
More Cryptocurrency Exchange Hacks/Scams/Frauds
Sim Swapping AT&T > > < < Bantiample Exit Scam
Sources/Further Reading
DeFi Project LV Finance Turns Out to Be Exit Scam | News | ihodl.com (May 24)
Crypto G - Fresh Cryptocurrency Blockchain News (Jun 5)
Slowmist 2020 Blockchain Security And Privacy Events (Jun 5)
Rug Pulling Threatens Defi - Ideas - yearn.finance (Jun 5)
List of Defi scams (Jun 5)
Il progetto DeFi LV Finance è sospettato di exit scam - CryptoRivista (Jun 5)
@stacheisback Twitter (Jun 5)
В экзит-скаме заподозрили DeFi-проект LV Finance - Stratum24 Украина (Jun 5)
DeFi Project LV Finance Has Fabricated the Results of Audits and Made Exit Scams (Jun 5)
LV | 0xa77f34bde382522cd3fb3096c480d15e525aab22 (Jun 5)
CipherTrace Cryptocurrency Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Report 2020 (Jun 20)
SlowMist Hacked - SlowMist Zone (May 18)
List of Defi scams (Jul 12)
Newsletter #11 (Jul 12)
12 Defi Con Artists Exposed – Are Rug Pulling Incidents Threatening the Future of Defi ? – Bitcoin worldReport (Jul 24)
Worldwide crypto & NFT rug pulls and scams tracker - Comparitech (Dec 31)
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