OpenSea, a well-known non-fungible token (NFT) platform, has responded to recent accusations on social media regarding the involvement of a former employee in the AnubisDAO rug pull incident of 2021. The accusations, made by an anonymous account called NFT Ethics, suggested that Kevin Pawlak, a former head of ventures at OpenSea, was connected to the pseudonymous identity “0xSisyphus” and was engaged in questionable business dealings.
NFT Ethics, along with the blockchain analytics account Lookonchain, claimed that 0xSisyphus, and by extension Pawlak, played a significant role in promoting the AnubisDAO project to investors just before the project transferred the raised funds to external wallets. NFT Ethics further alleged that Pawlak was part of a scheme involving the memecoin Pepe (PEPE) to launder the proceeds from the rug pull.
However, OpenSea responded by stating that they were not aware of any evidence linking Pawlak to such activities. They also emphasized that Pawlak had a limited role while working at the company and that the alleged events took place before his tenure at OpenSea.
OpenSea Addresses Allegations of Former Employee’s Role in AnubisDAO Rug Pull
Blockchain sleuth ZachXBT also expressed doubts about the accusations, describing the thread as speculative and based on unrelated events without concrete evidence. He noted that 0xSisyphus had previously offered a bounty for identifying the wallet address involved in the rug pull and had engaged with law enforcement agencies, which could cast doubt on the new allegations.
The AnubisDAO incident, which occurred in October 2021, involved the project raising a substantial amount of ETH from investors and subsequently transferring the funds to different wallet addresses, resulting in significant losses for investors. ZachXBT suggested that the primary actors responsible for the loss of funds were pseudonymous users known as “Beerus” and “Ersan.”