Gemholic, the team behind the defunct GemSwap decentralized exchange on Ethereum layer 2 network ZkSync, is accused of allegedly moving previously inaccessible funds unlocked with the recent ZkSync network upgrade and deleting its social media presence.
In April 2023, Eden Au, head of research at The Block, first noticed that 921 eth raised by Gemholic had been accidentally locked into a ZkSync smart contract due to technical differences between ZkSync’s Era network and the Ethereum mainnet.
ZkSync developers reported that they had devised a solution to unlock the funds, which at the time were worth about $1.7 million, but have since increased their value to $3.4 million due to rising Ethereum prices. The funds appear to have been unlocked yesterday after ZkSync’s recent v24 upgrade was deployed to mainnet.
Gemholic promised to continue the project once the original funding was unlocked. “We know many people have lost faith, but we still believe the @zksync team can make things right. Everyone needs to trust us. We will begin our marketing campaign and pre-launch as soon as the deal is finalized. We will also refund any excess amounts,” the project said. Account X is currently inaccessible last April, according to an archived version of the page.
However, after the funds were recovered, users of X user Nahnah64 recently compiled a list of wallet addresses that appear to reflect $3.4 million in unlocked funds.
“Today $3.5 million was stolen by Gemholic. Gemholic falsely promised refunds to investors for a year, but then finally ran a rug pull after the funds were unlocked,” X user NSerec, founder of zkMarkets, told X. I wrote it.
Gemholic has undergone know-your-consumer (KYC) and smart contract verification from blockchain security provider SolidProof, which has awarded the project a certificate of compliance. SolidProof and ZkSync could not immediately be reached for comment by press time.
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