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It’s been a year since we first covered the story around Squiggles, a tracked rugpull NFT with a full manifesto. The NFT market has seen so much come and go since this time, but the story of Squiggles has at least one chapter left in it.
Reports had emerged on Thursday that a US Federal Grand Jury was investigating the founders of the project, including reviewing the manifesto document and social media posts.
Let’s dive into the latest in the ‘Squiggles saga.’
Wasting Streaks
Not to be confused with the more popular (and of course, the much more established and legitimate NFT project) Chromie Squiggles, which falls under the Art Blocks umbrella, this NFT project Squiggles seeks the aesthetic seen in projects like Doodles – leaning towards cartoons. , wavy visuals.
The manifesto, titled “Squiggles Tapestry Warning,” garnered more attention than the project itself last year, and spans nearly 60 pages in total. It was released in the hours leading up to printing, and caused quite a stir in the NFT community; at the time, many of the biggest crypto sleuths and critics, including the likes of Coffeezilla, ZachXBT, NFTEthics, and more released threads and details surrounding the rug. OpenSea quickly pulled the project from their platform as the commotion grew.
A year later, it is mostly believed that these rugpull organizers have finally finished their bag and moved out of the NFT space. While the Squiggles project continues to be active on Twitter, comments and dialogue with the account have largely reinforced the widespread belief that this project is a complete rug. However, the story may not be over.
Ethereum-based NFTs have been the breadwinners in the space, but therefore, also the biggest sandbox for scammers and fraudsters to play in, too. | Source: ETH-USD on TradingView.com
Federal Investigation: What We Know
Three of the project’s founders, Gavin Mayo, Gabriel Hay, and Ali Saghi were cited in Grand Jury documents that have been circulating online Thursday. Federal investigators are specifically investigating violations of Sections 1343 and 1957 in Title 18 of the US code, which relate to wire fraud and money laundering.
Interestingly, the news appears to have first been broken by popular independent crypto platform DB News in a tweet that has since been deleted. Bitcoinist was unable to locate the origin of the Grand Jury documents circulating online.
While the full veracity of the report cannot be verified in its entirety, it shouldn’t surprise anyone; US investigators have cracked down in recent months on a number of high-profile NFT and DeFi rugs.
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