CoinMarketCap News, Feb 22: NFT Project Denies It's a Rug Pull After Twitter Fiasco

An explosive report by a Bulgarian news outlet suggests Ruja Ignatova — who became known as the Crypto Queen after creating the OneCoin Ponzi scheme — has been murdered. It's claimed she was killed and dismembered back in 2018, and her body was then tossed into a river on the orders of a drug lord. This is according to files found in the possession of a Bulgarian police officer who was also murdered. There has been no official confirmation of whether Ignatova is dead. She was recently named as one of the FBI's most wanted, with a $100,000 reward offered for information that led to her capture. This article could help explain why witnesses haven't been all that forthcoming.

An NFT collection that raised $5.3 million in an auction last March sparked anger when it suddenly announced that the project was being paused. Friendsies' Twitter account was then deleted, with the project's two co-founders switching their accounts to private. Allegations soon started to swirl that the project, which claimed to be building a play-to-earn, Tamagotchi-like game, was nothing more than a rug pull. The Twitter account later returned — with Friendsies insisting that, in actual fact, they have no plans to go anywhere. A tweet added: "We were overwhelmed with hate and threats & both our Twitter and website were attacked. Please understand our intentions and actions here are good."

What a difference a year makes. Coinbase suffered a net loss of $2.6 billion in 2022, with revenues and transaction volumes plunging in the final three months of the year. That coincided with the spectacular implosion of FTX. Despite the doom and gloom, the exchange actually managed to bring in more revenue than expected. On an earnings call, Brian Armstrong said he believes increased regulatory scrutiny following FTX's demise will end up being a good thing. He added: "I knew that there were going to be companies that would come in and try to cut corners. They might even grow really quickly because it's easier to move fast when you don't have to follow the rules. But they would inevitably come crashing down."

Meanwhile, Nexo's co-founder says charges brought by Bulgarian authorities are "ludicrous." Hundreds of detectives raided the crypto lender's offices last month — and the company has since been accused of a slew of crimes that include money laundering and the establishment of an organized crime group. Speaking to Bloomberg, Antoni Trenchev said prosecutors are "grasping for straws to make a case stick" — adding: "They make a bunch of accusations and they have no followthrough after that. And it takes years to exonerate your name because there is no procedure to make them actually file anything in court so that you can start." He went on to claim there's a "rampant lack of rule of law in the country."