BALD, a meme coin created to poke fun at Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong’s hairless appearance, suffered an 89.4% drop in value, according to CoinGecko data.

What Happened: The token’s deployer unexpectedly removed $25.6 million in liquidity, leaving investors high and dry, as per blockchain analytics platform Onchain Intrigue.

Rug pulls, a deceptive tactic prevalent in the crypto world, are particularly common within decentralized finance (DeFi) circles. The scheme involves developers launching a seemingly legitimate token, luring investors with promises, only to subsequently withdraw liquidity and vanish without a trace.

Traders were drawn to the platform’s newly launched ecosystem called Base and rushed to purchase new tokens, which were up 30,000% in a single day, using the decentralized exchange LeetSwap. However, today it became apparent that one of the tokens, called Bald, experienced a rug pull.

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Why It Matters: Blockchain watchers pointed to former FTX CEO Sam Bankman–Fried as a potential culprit, despite his current status of house arrest and limited internet access. 

Cinneamhain Ventures partner Adam Cochran tweeted, “BALD dev is like 90% SBF or an Alameda person at this point,” pointing out that the same wallet address had been involved in the SushiSwap community years ago.

Alameda or Sam Bankman-Fried did not respond to Benzinga’s request to comment, at the time of publishing.

Price Action: At the time of writing, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) was trading at $28,923 down 1.41% in the last 24 hours, according to Benzinga Pro.

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