A six-year prison sentence and the power constraints of on-chain projects: How Pump.fun was reborn from the ashes

2025-12-18 15:18:12

【Chain News】Another major case. The former developer of a on-chain project was sentenced to 6 years by a UK court for abuse of power, with charges of fraud and money laundering.

What did this guy do? During his tenure, he diverted about $2 million worth of Solana assets from the project account and then dispersed the funds to a bunch of random addresses. Even more outrageous, he later admitted to it on social media. The prosecution directly charged him with fraud and transfer of criminal proceeds, and the court fully accepted these charges, sentencing him to concurrent sentences.

What does this tell us? The importance of checks and balances in on-chain projects. When a developer controls the private keys and the treasury, they can do whatever they want. Although he was eventually caught, the project has already been heavily shadowed.

Interestingly, the project that went through this incident actually continued to operate afterward, with total revenue approaching $1 billion. This shows that the market has memory, but also resilience. As long as the team is sincere and the mechanism design is reasonable, users will still come back.

The lesson for investors is clear: when evaluating a project, don’t just look at the returns. Consider governance structure, fund management, and team transparency. Some seemingly perfect projects have very high concentration of power, so be cautious. On-chain activity is not outside the law; today’s large transfers could become evidence in court tomorrow.

PUMP-2.95%

SOL-2.19%

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just_another_fish

· 12-20 21:46

Haha, social media's self-proclaimed guilt is one of a kind. This guy probably just wants to send himself straight to jail.

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GmGmNoGn

· 12-20 21:06

Haha, this guy is really outrageous. He even confesses on social media. What's his thought process... Wait, that project Pump.fun? I remember there was a big controversy, but I didn't expect it to come back to a $1 billion valuation. The resilience is truly incredible. Poor management of private key authority restrictions is really like laying a landmine; it's a common issue. By the way, people still dare to invest in projects with a criminal record like this, their courage is really big. But it also shows that as long as you do things properly and not half-hearted, users will still trust you.

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LiquidityHunter

· 12-18 15:48

$2 million dispersed to random addresses... This guy really treats on-chain tracking as a decoration, and he even admits it afterward. The level of this operation is just off the charts. Speaking of which, the $1 billion recovery figure is quite eye-catching, but I'm more concerned about how deep the liquidity gap was during that period and how terrifying the slippage for retail investors must have been.

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RugpullAlertOfficer

· 12-18 15:46

Really risking 2 million USD by live eating, revealing his own mistakes on social media—this guy is a textbook example of a cautionary tale.

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tx_pending_forever