Written by: Joel Khalili
Translated by: Luffy, Foresight News
[The rest of the translation follows the same pattern, preserving the original structure and translating the text to English while keeping specific names and terms unchanged]In the next few minutes, some human traders and bots programmed to buy newly issued cryptocurrencies began investing. As they bought in, the cryptocurrency's price started to rise. At 1:36 AM, 16 minutes after trading began, the MEME coin reached a peak total value of $300,000. Then the scammers began selling.
On the Raydium trading platform, they dumped these tokens into the market through a series of rapid trades, with analysts estimating they profited around $8,000 to $10,000. At 1:45 AM, the WIRED magazine token was almost reduced to zero.
"Compared to other pump and dump scams we've seen, they didn't make much money this time. But in just 20 minutes, their earnings could be five times their initial investment," Larratt said.
At 2 AM, the proceeds from selling the WIRED magazine token were transferred to another wallet through a series of interconnected accounts. According to Chainalysis's analysis, this wallet might be associated with a cryptocurrency exchange service, where these proceeds were mixed with cryptocurrencies worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from other unknown sources.
On February 19 and 24, that wallet deposited a total of $110,000 worth of cryptocurrency into Binance.
After that, the trail went cold. Although cryptocurrency exchanges in most jurisdictions are required to record account holders' identities, they will not disclose this information unless requested by authorities, according to policy.
"We will not disclose account holder identities to the media, out of respect for our law enforcement colleagues to ensure the integrity of any ongoing investigation and prevent innocent users from being misidentified," Binance stated.
Larratt previously told WIRED magazine that criminals often use "money mules" (people hired to transfer illegal funds) or stolen identity documents to open accounts at exchanges, meaning identifying an account owner does not equate to identifying the scammer.
In the days following the WIRED magazine MEME coin pump and dump scam, I continued to receive messages from people who believed I had scammed them. As before, the most explicit threat messages came from an anonymous Telegram user.
"If you think I'm joking, you're very much mistaken," they wrote in one message, threatening to report me to WIRED magazine's management, "Do you really think you can escape punishment?" they said in another message.
Although I suspected these threats were bluster, they were still unsettling. To reduce the possibility of someone finding me, I registered a service that promised to clear my personal data fragments from the internet. I also contacted my friends and family, who were also indirectly threatened, and reported this harassment to local police.
A week later, after I posted an explanation about what happened on my X account, the abusive and threatening messages stopped.
Meanwhile, people continue to pour into the uncertain prospects of the MEME coin field. Third-party data shows that the MEME coin issuance platform Pump.fun, by charging a 1% fee on transaction amounts, earns $1 million to $2 million daily.
On April 14, the anonymous Telegram user who threatened me posted two screenshots on X, boasting about the massive profits they made in a recent MEME coin trade. He wrote: "We are so stupid." This phrase uses a derogatory term common among Memecoin traders, used to boast about their willingness to take risks. Finally, he ended the post with an emoji with dollar sign eyes.
