Astrology-themed NFT Project Lucky Star Currency Performs $1 Million Exit Scam

Project Pulls Off Exit Scam

The astrology-themed NFT project, Lucky Star Currency (LSC), has reportedly executed an exit scam, making off with over $1 million, according to blockchain security firm Certik.

How it Happened

According to Certik, the project's deployer account removed over $1 million in LSC tokens by calling the 'withdrawToken' function on the NFTMerge and AdwardCenter contracts. Those tokens were then swapped for Binance USD (BUSD) stablecoin and sent to another account.

About Lucky Star Currency

Lucky Star Currency is an NFT project founded by astrologists. The project consists of an Award Center and NFT Marketplace, and it primarily targets the Chinese crypto investment market. Promotion for the project was done on X (formerly Twitter) under the username @AstrAstrol75591, as well as through a Telegram channel. However, as of October 9th, the project's website and user interface are offline.

Pre-Scam Promotion

Prior to the exit scam, Lucky Star Currency received heavy promotion on the Chinese news app Toutiao and the Q&A platform Zhihu. The project seemed to be gaining traction in the Chinese market.

The Attack

At around 02:52 a.m. UTC, over 1.6 million LSC tokens were removed from the AwardCenter contract, followed by an additional 1.4 million LSC removed from the NFTMerge contract. The attacker then swapped the funds for over $1 million in BUSD using Pancake swap and sent it to account 0x23f8c805306Bf27AB8bf3cEbEce4B778acfFd896. Interestingly, this account has been receiving BUSD from various sources for the past 82 days, suggesting that more than one scam may have been depositing funds into it.

Certik's Findings

Certik has identified the contracts that were drained as the official contracts listed on Lucky Star Currency's Telegram channel. Furthermore, blockchain data shows that the attacking account is the deployer for the AwardCenter contract.

Rug-Pulls in the Chinese Crypto Space

This exit scam is not an isolated incident in the Chinese crypto space. Running a centralized cryptocurrency exchange is illegal in China, which has led to recurring rug-pull scams. Depositing funds into Chinese protocols that have centralized elements can put users at risk of having their funds confiscated by the police.

A History of Losses

In July, over $100 million was lost when the China-based Multichain protocol drained all its users' funds into an attacker's account. While the Multichain team claims that their CEO has been arrested, victims are still seeking answers and hoping for reimbursement of their lost funds.