Feb 2022 - Squiggles NFT Suspicious Launch Activity - $Unknown (Global)
"Squiggles are a set of 10,000 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) comprised of hundreds of unique visual features and character bases. The collection is currently publicly shown to contain but is not limited to: humans, apes, flame heads, clouds, clocks, beakers, and skulls. Hundreds of unique features, costumes, and colors of the artist's palette are also included in the Squiggles collection."
"Building a strong and healthy community is the first step in ensuring the long-term success of our project; Having a powerful community that supports and backs the founding team is essential in making certain we can accomplish all of our goals. In our effort to establish a strong bond between the founding team and community members, we plan on hosting AMA’s, organizing events, and maintaining 100% transparency at all times. Our community will continue to grow and flourish. We could not be more excited to bring you along this journey."
"This is our version of creating a genuine and effective passive income source for Squiggle holders. Our current plan is to set aside 15% of all secondary market royalty revenue into a Squiggles treasury. Holders will have the opportunity to apply for positions within the community. Different positions can generate revenue paid out on a bi-weekly basis as holders would be able to contribute to the project with their strong suits. Not only would this create stronger community dynamics, but it would also ensure long-term stability of the project. If we all work together as a team and hold each other accountable, we will be The Unstoppable Force in the NFT space."
"Owning a Squiggle will have numerous benefits. Our team is keen on the continued effort in taking care of our holders. We want to continue to maintain an environment where the best interest of our holders is in alignment with our best interest.We plan to always monitor the best upcoming NFT launches, along with feedback from our holders to find projects that may have exclusive whitelists. We plan to make our best effort in providing these whitelist spots to our holders. This way our holders won’t need to put effort in other communities in order to obtain a spot on their Whitelist!"
"This is something that has not been done in the NFT space, and it is our way of paving a new road in the greater community. We are making a shift from discouraging derivative based projects, to motivating people in getting creative and inspiring others with their own work. In doing so, we are allowing holders to have full IP rights to their Squiggle, and having free range to do whatever they want with it so long as it meets our guidelines. Rather than restricting people in creating derivative collections to Squiggles, we plan to act as a launchpad for them! Why you may ask? Because we thoroughly believe in the decentralization of the NFT space. Furthermore, we believe that any derivative collection will only bring more eyes and attention to its parent collection! Win-win.We also don’t plan on ONLY helping derivative based projects. We plan on establishing a launchpad for ANY type of project that our community presents to us.This is how we plan on supporting these projects:We plan to reserve 15% of all secondary market sales to help fund derivative projects that our team and community likes the most! All projects are welcome, but we obviously can’t fund all projects. This is our form of paying homage to our biggest supporters. We would be funding and using our influence to launch any project that’s been approved by the Squiggle Launchpad. More information on our launchpad is planned to roll out in the weeks prior to launch!ctions to Squiggles, we plan to act as a launchpad for them!"
"The Squiggle Store is planned to be a marketplace where you can buy both physical goods as well as digital, metaverse-ready items. We plan on having everything from t-shirts to coffee mugs for all our supporters to rock! Squiggle holders would be able to receive discounts from all items in our store as well!"
"Squiggles is a collection of 10,000 NFTs that was to drop this week. It had all the signs of a successful project, accumulating over 230,000 followers on Twitter, and a community of 284,000 on Discord."
"This project garnered a large amount of hype in the NFT space, having over 200k followers on Twitter and over 350k on their Discord. Many comparisons were made to the project Doodles, which is a blue-chip NFT collection, although it must be disclosed many derivatives have been created from Doodles.
The thing that made Squiggles stand out from the rest of the derivatives was its extremely high mint price, around $3100. As per any Dutch Auction style, the price reduced by 0.05ETH every 10 minutes until the NFT had been sold. Assuming the project sold its 10,000 collection at the 1ETH mark, it would have pocked over $3 million from primary market sales alone. This caused confusion and led to reports from the community of the project being a cash grab or rug pull.
The team behind the project had been shrouded in mystery, never revealing their true identity on the Squiggles website. Due to this, rumours began to circulate that the project was purely a rug, and a 57-page document outlining this was published. The original document was removed, but many copies had been created and circulated and shared on social media platforms such as Twitter. Within this document, which has reportedly been sent to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for investigation, the team behind Squiggles was also part of NFT rug pulls in the past. The other projects they are supposedly a part of have been: League of Sacred Devils, League of Divine Beings, Vault of Gems, Lucky Buddhas, Dirty Dogs, Sinful Souls and Faceless. It also revealed their real names, claiming that the team was made up of Gabriel Hay, Gavin Mayo and Ali Saghi."
"However last week, an anonymous person published a 60-page dossier explaining that ‘Squiggles’ was all a scam. It alleged that the faces behind the project were not in fact the people behind it, but rather a shadowy group of scammers who have pulled off several rug pulls in the past."
"Rumours of the project being a rug circulated after a 60-page report was published. The original document has since been deleted, but copies have been re-shared across Twitter. Within the document, it reported that the team behind Squiggles was behind many other ‘successful’ rug pull NFT projects before. The reported list is as follows: League of Sacred Devils, League of Divine Beings, Vault of Gems, Lucky Buddhas, Dirty Dogs, Sinful Souls and Faceless. It also revealed their real names, claiming that the team was made up of Gabriel Hay, Gavin Mayo and Ali Saghi, despite all of the team on the Squiggles website not revealing their true names. A copy of the full document which has been re-shared can be found here."
"At face value, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to buy high and sell low, unless the intended consequence was creating an illusion of demand and high volume. With $20 million at stake, it makes sense to burn 1 or 2 million along the way.
It may not have been possible for the information to reach all potential victims on time, which makes it quite likely that the scammers still made a small profit.
However, the big $20 million pay day there were anticipating never came to pass. In fact, they were delisted on OpenSea less than 24 hours later. The listing however still appeas to be live on LooksRare."
"The collection was removed from Opensea in the late hours of [February 10th, 2022], which was first reported by Twitter user @Helloimmorgan, who’s a big name in the space. Squiggles posted on Twitter saying “Squiggles community is very strong We love you all. <3”. Then, the project was removed from the premier NFT platform. Then, no more than 20 minutes later, the Tweet was deleted."
"As a community who experienced a rug ourselves, we know how the Squiggles fam is feeling and our hearts go out to them. If anyone from Squiggles wants help recovering, we can show you how we unrugged, hop into our Discord, we have devs waiting. WAGMI."
"Since the launch of Squiggles NFT in February of 2022, the team and community have faced countless setbacks. From being called a “rug” pre-launch to defamation, building Squiggles post launch was an uphill battle to say the least. As they say, there is always light at the end of the tunnel; As of May 31st 2023, we are proud to announce that the original Squiggles roadmap has been completed in full (and more) all while not generating any post-launch revenue, not to mention, without even selling out. Below will outline each step of the roadmap along with other utilities provided to our community."
"A year after the project was blacklisted on OpenSea because of certain troubling claims, a federal grand jury is looking into the creators of Squiggles NFT for money laundering and fraud. Tier10k, a Twitter user reported, which was later confirmed by a court document."
"For the majority of the last year, Squiggles has been an NFT project under evaluation. After its delisting on OpenSea, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) got a 57-page report to help with its inquiry.
According to the document released today, the owners of Squiggles NFT will be investigated by a federal grand jury. According to the court document, the probe is looking at probable breaches of federal criminal procedure. Furthermore, the lawsuit expressly named Gavin Mayo, Gabriel Hay, and Ali Saghi as defendants.
Furthermore, the complaint indicated that the agency is looking into breaches of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1343 and 1957. These two claim that the founders mentioned above committed fraud as well as probable money laundering techniques."
Further Analysis
Squiggles is an NFT project featuring "humans, apes, flame heads, clouds, clocks, beakers, and skulls", with some similarities to the popular Doodles collection. The project originally planned to launch with 10,000 NFTs available to their community. However, shortly before launch, a 60-page dossier was published alleging that the project was actually run by serial scammers and much of the initial volume was faked. The ability to buy and sell the NFTs on OpenSea was disabled, and at least on Twitter account was suspended. The project ultimately lowered the size of the collection to 5,000 NFTs and has continued to promote a similar concept.
How Could This Have Been Prevented?
More Cryptocurrency Exchange Hacks/Scams/Frauds
Kung Fu Ape Rug Pull > > < < FutureSwap Credential Disclosure
Sources/Further Reading
https://mobile.twitter.com/FrostiesNFTs/status/1492000327339442176 (Dec 31)
https://www.publish0x.com/cryptogod-1/squiggles-nfts-delisted-from-opensea-xrnzqom?a=olejZqrzej (Dec 31)
https://opensea.io/collection/squigglesnftcollection (Dec 31)
Busting a $20,000,000 NFT Scam (Squiggles) - YouTube (Dec 31)
Squiggles NFT Founders Face Federal Grand Jury Investigation - Ethereum World News (Dec 31)
@kmoney_69 Twitter (Dec 31)
Federal Jury investigating Squiggles for fraud and money laundering (Dec 31)
@squiggles Twitter (Dec 31)
Squiggles-The-New-Age.pdf - Google Drive (Dec 31)
@squiggles Twitter (Dec 31)
Squiggles | Home (Dec 31)
Squiggles | Home (Dec 31)
@squiggles Twitter (Dec 31)
@307 Twitter (Dec 31)
@307 Twitter (Dec 31)
@Helloimmorgan Twitter (Dec 31)
Squiggles NFTs Delisted from Opensea - A writeup I did on the recent scam in the world of NFTs, nobody is safe from these kind of scammers : CryptoCurrency (Dec 31)
https://www.publish0x.com/cryptogod-1/squiggles-nfts-delisted-from-opensea-xrnzqom (Dec 31)
Blockchain community busts alleged $20M NFT drop scam before sale completion (Dec 31)
@search Twitter (Dec 31)
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