In 2025, the Web3 industry experienced a series of jaw-dropping events, from a presidential concept Meme coin harvesting over 100 million USD, to employees embezzling nearly 50 million USD, and Jia Yueting entering the cryptocurrency field. These incidents reflect the complex facets of human nature in the crypto world.
(Previous summary: What are crypto users most concerned about in 2025? Different AI large models provided these answers)
(Background supplement: 2025 Whale Suffering Chronicles: Mansion Kidnappings, Supply Chain Poisoning, and Billions of USD Liquidated)

Table of Contents

• Mysterious team manipulates presidential concept Meme coin, harvesting over 1 billion USD
  • Incident overview
  • Reasons for selection
  • Absurdity index:★★★★★
• Infini employees embezzled nearly 50 million USD in crypto trading
  • Incident overview
  • Reasons for selection
  • Absurdity index:★
• Large holder manipulates oracle results to forcibly “modify reality”
  • Incident overview
  • Reasons for selection
  • Absurdity index:★★★
• TUSD fund misappropriation case: accidental or deliberate?
  • Incident overview
  • Reasons for selection
  • Absurdity index:★★★★
• Zerebro co-founder Jeffy’s “fake death” controversy
  • Incident overview
  • Reasons for selection
  • Absurdity index:★★★
• Sui “frozen” hacker funds sparks “centralization issues” debate
  • Incident overview
  • Reasons for selection
  • Absurdity index:☆
• Conflux’s “reverse backdoor listing” failure
  • Incident overview
  • Reasons for selection
  • Absurdity index:★★★★
• “Returning to China next week” Jia Huiqi raises funds in crypto圈
  • Incident overview
  • Reasons for selection
  • Absurdity index:★★★★☆
• USDX project “borrows money to cash out”, founder’s “remarkable record”
  • Incident overview
  • Reasons for selection
  • Absurdity index:★★★
• Berachain offers “original price exit” clause to venture capital, founder’s “stellar achievements”
  • Incident overview
  • Reasons for selection
  • Absurdity index:★★★

At the end of 2022, I reviewed the bizarre incidents of that year. Three years later, I am again summarizing 2025’s Web3 in the same way.

Time has passed, and compared to three years ago, Web3 in 2025 has undergone a complete transformation. Similar basic errors like sending to the wrong address or misconfiguring parameters are now rare. Although the events this year are less “funny” than before, their absurdity is no less. It only shows that human nature, the greatest playwright, continues to exert influence.

Mysterious team manipulates presidential concept Meme coin, harvesting over 1 billion USD

Incident overview

Early in the year, the new US President Trump issued the Meme coin TRUMP, which was widely known. Subsequently, Melania Trump and Argentine President Mille also promoted related tokens MELANIA and LIBRA on their personal social media accounts on January 20 and February 15, 2025, Beijing time. (Mille’s tweets have been deleted).

There’s nothing much to say about Melania issuing coins; selling after issuance in the PvP Meme coin circle is nothing new, and everyone considers themselves unlucky if they lose.

Mille’s issue was more problematic. Within hours of LIBRA token launch, the project team withdrew 87 million USD in USDC and SOL from the liquidity pool, causing the price to plummet over 80%. Such withdrawal actions are intolerable to P-level traders and sparked widespread criticism. Mille deleted the tweets after the incident escalated and launched an anti-corruption investigation. Later, the community exposed KIP Protocol and Kelsier Ventures behind LIBRA, but KIP Protocol claimed only to handle technical oversight, while market maker Kelsier Ventures’ Hayden Davis accused the presidential team of “last-minute reversal” causing panic.

Subsequently, Bubblemaps conducted rigorous on-chain fund flow analysis, discovering that both MELANIA and LIBRA deployment addresses are highly associated with the same address, involving Rug Pull projects TRUST, KACY, VIBES, etc. Kelsier Ventures, the LIBRA market maker, was also called a “family-style crime syndicate” by crypto KOLs.

Moreover, inside Mille’s government, an “insider” was exposed: Mille’s confidant received 5 million USD to promote the LIBRA tweet. Hundreds of thousands of dollars for over 100 million USD—definitely a lucrative deal.

Reasons for selection

This might be the “least words, biggest fuss” farce in this article. When capital and politics join forces in a blatant “robbery,” who can we still trust?

Absurdity index:★★★★★

Infini employees embezzled nearly 50 million USD in crypto trading

Incident overview

On February 24, Beijing time, stablecoin digital bank Infini was hacked, with 49.5 million USD stolen from Morpho MEVCapital Usual USDC Vault. After the incident, Infini founder Christian immediately acknowledged the theft and promised full compensation even in the worst case.

Later, the Infini team on-chain addressed the hacker, claiming they had obtained extensive information about the hacker. If the hacker could return 80% of the funds(20% as white-hat bounty), they would not pursue legal action. On February 26, Infini issued a final on-chain ultimatum, but the hacker took no action. The next day, Christian announced that the Infini hacker case had been officially filed in Hong Kong.

Less than a month later, Infini published litigation documents, revealing that the “hacker” was actually a skilled developer within the Infini team, trusted by the team.

This engineer, Chen Shanxuan, originally had the highest permissions for managing company and client funds contracts, and during the transfer of control after development, exploited the team’s trust to secretly retain control over the contract via his own address. So, the so-called hacker incident was actually a case of self-embezzlement.

As for why this brother took such risks, the Infini team stated that they only discovered Chen Shanxuan’s gambling addiction after the theft, despite earning millions annually, he borrowed money to open contracts, and with increasing online loan debts, he eventually went down the wrong path. According to Colin Wu, Chen Shanxuan was once a model of sharing technical knowledge, but ended up like this, which is quite lamentable.

Reasons for selection

Entrepreneurship and investment are different. When shifting from the lofty “cognition realization” to “getting your hands dirty,” Web3 entrepreneurs still need to hone their skills. And one more thing: unless you are exceptionally talented, avoid contracts.

Absurdity index:★

UMA large holder manipulates oracle results to forcibly “modify reality”

Incident overview

On March 25, 2025, due to a popular prediction market on Polymarket about the US presidential election, an oracle attack occurred. In the “Will Ukraine agree to Trump’s mineral agreement before April?” market, as the deadline approached, the probability of “Yes” was near zero, but suddenly on the evening of March 25, it reversed, and the “Yes” probability shot up to 100%.

The reason for the reversal was not Zelensky softening, but a large UMA holder participating in the 7-million USD market, forcibly changing the fact using their large UMA holdings. User DeFiGuyLuke explained in detail:

When Polymarket needs event results, it first requests data, and proposers submit data along with a deposit of 750 USDC. After submission, a dispute period ensues, during which others can challenge the result by paying an equal deposit. Ultimately, all UMA holders vote to decide the outcome.

In the Ukraine mineral agreement market, a whale holding 5 million UMA voted for the wrong outcome, fearing loss. This voting created a demonstration effect, causing ordinary users to worry about being unable to oppose whales, leading to this situation.

Polymarket later admitted it was a mistake but considered it part of the game rules, refusing to change the result. In August 2025, UMA introduced a whitelist mechanism, allowing only entities approved by Polymarket to propose resolutions, reducing malicious manipulation, but this did not change the core oracle, only optimized governance.

(# Reasons for selection

Can Polymarket’s approach be considered decentralization? As a new truth machine, ignoring oracle errors should be regarded as a product design flaw.

)# Absurdity index:★★★

TUSD fund misappropriation case: accidental or deliberate?

Incident overview

On April 3, 2025, Sun Yuchen held a press conference in Hong Kong, accusing Hong Kong trust institution First Digital Trust of illegally transferring 456 million USD of TUSD reserves, demanding law enforcement investigation. However, the Hong Kong court rejected Sun Yuchen’s request. A month earlier, the Dubai International Financial Centre Court###DIFC### issued a global freeze order on 456 million USD assets related to TrueUSD issuer Techteryx. The court found evidence of trust violations and ordered a global freeze to protect assets.

The truth of this matter remains controversial, with no definitive conclusion yet. Here are some publicly available details.

Techteryx Ltd.(, a registered investment firm in the British Virgin Islands, acquired TrueUSD business at the end of 2020, responsible for operations and management. Due to business continuity, the original US-based operator TrueCoin was retained to manage reserves and banking coordination, and Hong Kong trust First Digital Trust was designated as custodian. Public info shows Sun Yuchen as Techteryx’s “Asia Market Advisor,” but documents and hearings at DIFC in 2025 describe him as Techteryx’s “ultimate beneficial owner).” To some extent, Sun Yuchen controls Techteryx but is not the official legal representative.

This dual identity set the stage for subsequent events. From Sun Yuchen’s perspective:

Between 2021-2022, TrueCoin, as trustee, formed close ties with Hong Kong trust FDT and management of Legacy Trust, and established a covert fund outflow channel with Cayman Islands fund Aria Commodity Finance Fund(, hereafter “ACFF.” Sun Yuchen stated, “With control over reserve instructions and fund flow, forged documents and false investment directives were repeatedly submitted to banks.”

Court evidence shows that the reserves, instead of being deposited into the compliant Cayman fund ACFF as agreed, were secretly transferred in batches to Dubai’s Aria DMCC, controlled by UK citizen Matthew Brittain’s wife. Aria DMCC was not authorized by Techteryx for investment.

In simple terms, Sun Yuchen believes Techteryx asked FDT to transfer reserves to ACFF, but FDT transferred the money to Aria DMCC, suspected of embezzlement.

From FDT’s perspective:

Lorraine, an “authorized representative” of Techteryx, asked FDT to transfer reserves to ACFF. FDT believed it did not receive a genuine request from Techteryx’s actual controller, and due to distrust of Lorraine, did not transfer funds to ACFF but instead moved them to Aria DMCC). The logic here is unclear; the two companies are intricately connected, but FDT provided no further explanation(, claiming the current asset allocation still yields returns.

The key point is, FDT claims they never embezzled funds; as long as Techteryx’s actual controller issues instructions, they can recover the money. The crucial part is proving who the actual controller is.

There are two ways to recover the 456 million USD: either Techteryx, through its KYC-verified controller, formally requests FDT to return the funds; if no such person exists, then prove FDT’s actions are illegal, and the court can order FDT to return the funds. Due to Sun Yuchen’s special status, only the latter approach is feasible.

The most interesting part of this incident is that during an online court hearing about Techteryx, where Sun Yuchen, claiming not to be Techteryx’s legal person, did not participate, a person named Bob suddenly appeared. The judge asked him to turn on his camera, and when he did, it was actually Sun Yuchen.

![])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/social/moments-9cb3a8043d-f927223485-153d09-6d5686(

This behavior sparked community speculation: even if FDT did not transfer funds as required, Sun Yuchen’s reluctance to be the legal person of Techteryx—avoiding legal responsibility—led many to question whether there was really embezzlement. Some joked that finally, “Brother Sun” is standing up for rights.

)# Reasons for selection

Perhaps FDT also exploited ambiguous relationships to embezzle funds, or maybe, as they claim, it was for fund safety. We can only wait for the final outcome. Unpredictable things happen; sometimes, cleverness backfires.

(# Absurdity index:★★★★

) Zerebro co-founder Jeffy’s “fake death” controversy

(# Incident overview

On May 4, 2025, 22-year-old Zerebro co-founder Jeffy Yu conducted a live stream on pump.fun, but afterward, multiple community users claimed that “Jeffy Yu committed suicide during the stream, after smoking a cigarette, he aimed a gun at his neck and pulled the trigger, then the screen went silent.”

The video quickly spread on Twitter, with many expressing regret. However, as the video’s authenticity was never confirmed, some questioned whether it was a marketing stunt.

One reason for doubt was that Jeffy Yu had posted an article about “Legacoin” before the stream. In the article, he described “Legacy memecoin” Legacoin), based on the concept of legacy memecoin###, with the core promise that developers would only buy and never sell related assets, and after death, lock them permanently on the blockchain to realize “eternal digital legacy.” On the day of the stream, a token named LLJEFFY was launched on pump.fun.

On May 5, Legacy platform issued a message about Jeffy Yu’s death, not naming him explicitly, but the community generally recognized this Jeffy Yu as Zerebro co-founder. The next day, Jeffy Yu’s Mirror account posted an automatic message triggered by certain conditions, stating, “If you see this message, it means I am dead…”

Besides this classic opening, the article also included what Jeffy called his final artwork, code-named LLJEFFY “Legacoin,” and his expression of disgust for money: “Once I become somewhat rich and famous online, everything meaningful collapses—friends, family, romantic relationships, co-founders. Everything becomes less pure.”

However, a shocking twist followed: community influencers Irene Zhao and DeFi developer Daniele exposed Jeffy’s “fake death” plan. According to a leaked letter, Jeffy claimed he had long been harassed by a former partner###ex-partner### and subjected to telecom fraud, then targeted and extorted by another. Jeffy stated his home address and phone number were frequently publicized, severely endangering his safety. These malicious acts also included hate speech targeting his ethnicity, gender identity, and personal achievements.

Although Jeffy wanted to withdraw directly, he was worried that publicly announcing his exit would cause the token price to plummet and lead to worse consequences. So he staged a “fake death” to fade out of public view. Later, Lookonchain found that on May 7, a wallet possibly related to Jeffy Yu sold 35.55 million ZEREBRO tokens, earning about 127,000 USD in SOL###, then transferred 7,100 SOL (~106,000 USD) to the developer wallet of LLJEFFY(G5sjgj address). Whether Jeffy was truly scared and chose to exit via fake death, or just wanted to cash out and disappear more safely, remains uncertain.

(# Reasons for selection

Betrayal, threats—these are not news in the business world. When you participate in a high-stakes gamble with no guarantees, you should know it’s a game of life and death, wealth and fate in the hands of luck.

)# Absurdity index:★★★

( Sui “frozen” hacker funds spark “centralization issues” debate

)# Incident overview

On May 22, 2025, Sui’s largest DEX Cetus was attacked due to a code precision bug, with 223 million USD stolen. Two hours after the theft, Cetus announced freezing 162 million USD of stolen funds.

Regarding how the funds were “frozen,” Sui’s official Chinese account explained: Sui requires 2/3 of node votes to approve transactions. This time, 2/3 of the nodes in the Sui network selectively ignored the hacker’s transactions, preventing the hacker from transferring the funds out. Besides cross-chain assets worth about 60 million USD on Ethereum, the assets remaining on Sui were directly held back by the nodes.

How to recover the stolen funds? Solayer engineer Chaofan said the Sui team is requesting each validator to deploy a patch to “recover” the funds without the attacker’s signature. However, Sui validators responded they had not received such a “request.” Chaofan later stated that Sui validators currently have not deployed related code.

(# Reasons for selection

In this discussion, centralization vs. decentralization is less relevant. The real question is: if I transfer funds incorrectly on Sui, will Sui help me recover? Perhaps this is a question worth pondering after “breaking the precedent.”

)# Absurdity index:☆

( Conflux “reverse backdoor listing” failed

)# Incident overview

On July 1, 2025, Hong Kong-listed company Leading Medical Biotechnology announced it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Northwestern Foundation###seller### and Conflux regarding potential acquisition of all shares of the target company, contingent upon the target completing the acquisition of Conflux assets as per agreement. Conflux assets refer to certain assets and/or business related to Conflux blockchain and technology, to be defined by Leading Medical.

This sounds complicated, but simply put, Conflux attempted a reverse backdoor listing. Why “reverse”? Because typically, a company wanting to go public acquires a listed company; here, the operation was reversed.

Some might ask why this isn’t just a straightforward acquisition. Because in early April, Leading Medical announced that Dr. Long Fan and Dr. Wu Ming became executive directors—both founders of Conflux. On August 21, Leading Medical announced a plan to issue 145 million new shares, raising about 58.82 million HKD, to fund blockchain development. By late September, Leading Medical rebranded as Xing Tai Lian Group.

![]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/social/moments-f274c6829c-53e927c666-153d09-6d5686###

In theory, with the Web3 tailwind, the stock price should soar. The good news is it did rise for a while; the bad news is it fell even more afterward. On September 12, the previous financing plan of nearly 60 million USD failed to meet certain conditions before September 11, causing a sharp drop in stock price. After rebranding at the end of September, the decline worsened…

Before the market opened on November 17, 2025, Xing Tai Lian announced it was suspended by HKEX on November 26 due to failure to meet listing requirements.

Reasons for selection

HKEX’s reason of “failure to meet continuing listing criteria” already shows some face. Although Hong Kong strongly supports Web3 development, such actions do feel like treating others as fools.

Absurdity index:★★★★

“Returning to China next week” Jia Huiqi raises funds in crypto圈

Incident overview

On August 17, 2025, Jia Yueting’s electric vehicle company Faraday Future, with quarterly revenue of tens of thousands USD and net loss over 100 million USD, announced the launch of the “C10 Index” and the “C10 Treasury” product, officially entering the crypto asset field.

The C10 Index tracks the top ten cryptocurrencies globally(excluding stablecoins), including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and other mainstream assets. The C10 Treasury adopts an 80% passive + 20% active investment model to ensure sustainable returns. According to its official website, FF will use dedicated financing to purchase crypto assets, raising funds from the market and using that to buy crypto. The initial goal is to acquire 0.5-1 billion USD worth of crypto assets after securing necessary funds, with the first 30 million USD allocation expected to start this week. The long-term vision is to expand to 10 billion USD, achieving compound growth through staking yields.

After the official announcement, Jia Yueling successfully raised funds, even investing 30 million USD in Qualigen Therapeutics, Inc. to help transition into crypto assets, with Jia personally serving as an advisor.

Recently, Jia announced a partnership with Tesla, where Faraday Future’s new models can directly connect to Tesla’s Supercharger network, and even expressed willingness for full cooperation on FSD technology.

Reasons for selection

Jia Huiqi indeed has some skills that most people can’t learn. This is why I only give five stars to him as a gesture of respect for Mille.

Absurdity index:★★★★☆

USDX project “borrows money to cash out”, founder’s “stellar record”

Incident overview

On November 5, 2025, after the third-party “curator” of xUSD suffered huge losses, user 0xLoki discovered that, although redeeming the minted sUSDX stablecoin normally only took one day, an address ignored the over 30% annualized interest rate and drained all pools on Euler that used USDX and sUSDX as collateral.

USDX is issued by usdx.money, which announced a valuation of 275 million USD and a 45 million USD funding round at the end of last year. Its mechanism is almost identical to USDe, with the main difference being that USDX also executes Delta-neutral strategies on altcoins, aiming for higher yields, according to the project.

Investigation shows two suspicious addresses have been receiving large amounts of USDX and sUSDX since late October, draining all liquidity channels on-chain via lending and DEX trading, leaving many lenders with bad debts. The problem, as mentioned earlier, is that this stablecoin should only take one day to redeem the original USDT.

More alarmingly, one of the suspicious addresses is directly related to Flex Yang, founder of USDX issuer usdx.money. Both the project and the founder are rushing to cash out. Besides the project already having issues, is there any other explanation? On the night of the article’s publication, USDX started to de-peg severely, confirming the project’s problems. On November 8, Stables Labs tweeted they would help affected users based on available resources and opened registration channels, but that was their last tweet, and the actual progress remains unknown.

Further digging reveals Flex Yang is also the founder of Beibao Finance and HOPE. Beibao faced insolvency issues during the 2022 bear market, entering a long restructuring process, still uncertain today; HOPE was severely impacted after its lending products were attacked. Although not officially bankrupt, it has gradually exited the market.

(# Reasons for selection

The biggest lesson from history is that people never learn from history. Entrepreneurs keep failing, yet repeatedly face risk control issues—are they truly targeted, or is it self-embezzlement?

)# Absurdity index:★★★

( Berachain offers “original price exit” clause to venture capital

)# Incident overview

On November 25, 2025, according to Unchained, documents disclosed that Layer1 project Berachain provided a special refund clause to Brevan Howard’s Nova Digital fund during Series B financing, making its 25 million USD investment nearly “risk-free.”

Berachain co-founder Smokey the Bera responded later, denying the report’s accuracy, emphasizing that Brevan Howard remains one of the largest investors, with investments involving complex agreements, and that Nova Digital’s terms were designed to hedge against token failure. Berachain mentioned that Nova Fund proactively approached and proposed to lead the round, with investments based on uniform terms. The controversial side agreement was to meet Nova’s compliance requirements, not to protect principal from market losses. Brevan Howard remains one of Berachain’s largest token holders, continuously increasing BERA holdings amid market volatility, not exiting as implied.

![]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/social/moments-9d7c3f5620-612bc7224c-153d09-6d5686###

According to the disclosed documents, Nova Digital invested 25 million USD in Berachain in March 2024, purchasing BERA tokens at 3 USD each. As a co-lead investor in Series B, the fund obtained a side agreement signed on March 5, 2024, granting the right to full refund within one year after TGE. This means if BERA’s price performs poorly, Nova Digital can demand Berachain to return all investment before February 6, 2026.

Another controversy is whether Berachain should disclose this special clause to other Series B investors. Two anonymous Series B investors said the project did not inform them that Nova Digital had a refund right. Lawyers pointed out this might violate securities law disclosure requirements of “material information.”

Reasons for selection

If Berachain’s shady operation is true, it can be considered as using Nova Digital’s reputation for hype, akin to fraud. So, do you still naively think Web3 should avoid strict regulation?