Rug Stories: What’s In a Name?

A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet? Unfortunately for Shakespeare, this phrase just doesn’t hold up in crypto. While unconventional names are commonplace in crypto (Pancakeswap, case in point), names can be a dead giveaway about the lack of direction for a token. 90% of readers should be able to identify a potential rug pull based on the name alone.

Let’s examine the nuts and bolts of what I call, “Nameology” for some red flags that would indicate a potential rug pull.

Stolen Intellectual Property

The first step in “nameology” is to look for any obvious signs of stolen intellectual property. Do you really think that a massive IP like Pokemon would make their blockchain debut in an obscure corner of the BNB Chain with an anonymous team? If a token is borrowing copyrighted or trademarked or protected intellectual properties, it is a certainty that it will be a rug pull.

Vulgarity & Lack of Human Dignity

This isn’t always the case, but most tokens that boast vulgar names (think anything phallic shaped) are most certainly a pump and dump scheme. This token is looking to make some marketing waves and enjoy a day of edge-lording. While there may be some proposed use case in some of these projects, they aren’t going anywhere long term.

Preying Off Unpredictable Events & Fast to Market

It is remarkable how quickly after Queen Elizabeth II’s death, the ensuing avalanche of tokens were trending. Elizabeth token on BNBChain boasted over 6 million dollars of trading volume in little under a week.

Think about this for just a second; do we mean to say that a legitimate crypto token with a vibrant community, a use case, and long-lasting power was dreamed up and launched within a couple of days?

As we all suspected, it rugged hard after a few days of trading volume.

How Do We Keep Falling for this?

You may be wondering…how is anyone falling for projects like these? Isn’t it patently obvious that ELIZABETH token is going to rug?

There may be a few reasons why some of these projects still get some play such as language barriers (making identifying these trends difficult), lack of understanding trading psychology, and simple degenerate gambling.

Conclusions

This series of posts, Rug Stories, is designed to help you understand the inner workings of rug pull psychology, mechanics and to provide you with some tools as you look for new tokens.

As you are listening to that AMA or scouring your discord for some new projects, your reasonable first reaction to a token’s name may be the first step of defense against a potential rug pull. I would pass the token through the above filters before moving on. You can thank me later.

Written by: EZ from the RugZombie team.

What is RugZombie:

RugZombie is a NFT farming platform converting your rug pulled tokens into NFTs. All RugZombie NFTs are playable assets in their forthcoming game, ZOM. Turn your dead tokens into undead monsters, fight for glory, and earn prizes.

Where to find RugZombie:

| Website | Twitter | Discord | Medium | Linktree |