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Onchain Investigator Flags Solana Project Aqua for $4.65M Rug Pull Risk

Onchain Investigator Flags Solana Project Aqua for $4.65M Rug Pull Risk

According to ZachXBT, Solana project Aqua allegedly diverted over $4.65 million in presale funds despite a live product, high trading activity, and high-profile endorsements.

SOL

Fact Check
The statement is strongly supported by multiple independent news sources. Several pieces of evidence (from TodayOnChain, CoinMarketCal, and CryptoBriefing) explicitly name the on-chain investigator as ZachXBT and confirm that he flagged the Solana project 'Aqua' for an alleged rug pull amounting to approximately $4.65 million. The details are highly consistent across all provided sources.
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Summary

On September 9, onchain investigator ZachXBT alleged that Solana-based project Aqua executed a rug pull involving 21,770 SOL, valued at roughly $4.65 million. Despite having a functioning Telegram trading bot with $137 million in 30-day trading volume and $2.83 million in revenue, as well as a Quill Audits security review and endorsements from Meteora, Helius, SYMMIO, and several influencers, all presale funds were transferred out, leaving only 860 SOL in initial liquidity. The funds were split and moved to exchanges, with on-chain analysis linking the team to the $20 million IBXTrade scam. DappRadar reported $6 billion lost to rug pulls so far in 2025, highlighting the increased sophistication of such frauds.

Terms & Concepts
  • Rug Pull: A type of crypto scam where developers withdraw investors’ funds from a project and disappear, leaving tokens worthless.
  • SOL (Solana): The native cryptocurrency of the Solana blockchain, used for transaction fees, staking, and network security.
  • Telegram Trading Bot: A bot integrated with Telegram that allows users to execute cryptocurrency trades directly through the messaging app interface.