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GM, Tim here.
- A Solana DeFi leader resigns amid the LIBRA token scandal.
- Privacy protocol Railgun thwarts a hacker.
- World Liberty Financial plans a crypto stockpile.
Ben Chow resigns
A Solana DeFi leader resigned after being implicated in the $4.5 billion pump-and-dump of a memecoin promoted by Argentine President Javier Milei.
Meteora protocol co-founder Ben Chow distanced himself from Hayden Davis, a crypto promoter who admitted to front-running the LIBRA token and sharing information about its launch with insiders, ultimately profiting $100 million at the expense of investors.
“Neither I nor the Meteora team compromised the $LIBRA launch by leaking information, nor did we purchase, receive, or manage any tokens,” Chow said in an X post.
On Friday, Milei promoted the LIBRA token in a since-deleted post.
LIBRA soared to a $4.5 billion market value before crashing more than 95%.
Chow’s resignation comes after a leaked conversation, first reported by SolanaFloor, in which the co-founder was confronted about his involvement with LIBRA.
Moty Povolotski, founder of Solana app DefiTuna, asked Chow if he had a deal with Davis to help him provide liquidity for rigged memecoin launches in exchange for a cut.
“What? No man, that’s not true at all,” Chow said.
Meteora is a DeFi protocol that helps users launch and provide liquidity for new memecoins.
It was co-founded by Chow and Ming Ng, who also co-founded the $2.5 billion trading aggregator Jupiter.
In an X post, Ng said Chow had shown a “lack of judgement” as Meteora’s project lead.
“This is unfortunately unacceptable. Ben understands this, and has chosen to resign,” Ng said.
Railgun thwarts hacker
Railgun is proving onchain privacy doesn’t have to benefit criminals.
On Thursday, ZkLend, a lending protocol on the Starknet blockchain, suffered a $9.5 million hack.
The hacker transferred the crypto to the Ethereum blockchain, and then attempted to transfer it again using Railgun, a protocol that allows users to break the chain of traceability between blockchain transactions.
That would have allowed the hacker to continue moving the stolen crypto across the blockchain or to potentially transfer it to an exchange unnoticed, where it could be exchanged for cash.
Instead, the Railgun protocol refused the hacker’s request.
DeFi security experts can flag criminal crypto addresses to Railgun. Once accepted, the protocol won’t let the address use the protocol’s privacy functionality.
“If they are [ill-gotten], the only action the bad actor can perform is to send back to their originating address,” Alan Scott, co-founder of the Railgun project, told DL News.
WLF’s crypto stockpile
Trump-backed DeFi protocol World Liberty Financial said Wednesday it plans to create a strategic reserve of digital assets.
Dubbed Macro Strategy, the fund is designed to “bolster leading projects like Bitcoin and Ethereum” and emerging DeFi opportunities.
Last week, World Liberty co-founder Chase Herro said the onchain stockpile will show the company’s commitment to the crypto industry.
How it will do so is unclear. World Liberty hasn’t been a long-term holder of its crypto stash, at least not on its publicly known wallet addresses.
World Liberty has acquired cryptocurrencies of several prominent projects, including Tron, Move, Ethena, and Chainlink.
The announcement comes after a Blockworks investigation found World Liberty Financial courted crypto teams for token swap deals.
This week in DeFi governance
PROPOSAL: DYdX Operations subDAO requests $11.65 million grant
PROPOSAL: The Uniswap Foundation requests $165 million for grants, operating expenses
VOTE: Aave DAO works towards integrating Pendle PT tokens with Chaos Labs
Post of the week
Crypto Twitter inducts Hayden Davis (right) as the final evolution in infamous memecoin promoters.
Also pictured are the boy who launched the Gen Z Quant memecoin (left) and Orangie (centre).
this entire cycle summed up in one photo pic.twitter.com/7AMOq1xoK3
— banditxbt (@banditxbt) February 16, 2025
Got a tip about DeFi? Reach out at tim@dlnews.com.
