Meld Failed Project or Rugpull? Initial Xerberus Investigation Report

[@DappCentral]

Thanks for the detailed breakdown and support for fellow creators Pete. Thank you. Ill be restructuring how I conduct the channel over the coming weeks.

[@ruipbranco]

you also cashed out quite nicely from it.

[@benali6344]

All remunerated scammers advertising scams like meld or genius yield

[@LearnCardano]

We can't lose our creators in the space. There are only a few of us to start with and even less as time goes on.

[@drpaine7428]

Hah whats up Fareid... love the cross channel communication... I was saying what a great community this is.. im a fan of your channel as well.. Thanks for what you both are doing !

[@hnhl2770]

I delegated my ADA to get those tokens because I was interested in participating -- only to see those scumbags switch to Avalanche with the funds we gave them. F them, good riddance! And I hope someone sues them f out of them, because imagine if they were offering €300k for a hire, what the "CEO" and the "founders" were paying themselves. This was a classic rug pull, nothing more. Shame on any "Cardano content creator" who has been promoting this even after the MASSIVE red flag when they dumped Cardano.

[@forHeavenSakeOnUs]

Scumbag

[@LearnCardano]

They always said that the ADA raised was never sold and was only ever users for liquidity on DEXes. I have no idea about that and no way to verify any of that data. I hope the Xerberus report will reveal more soon.

[@sr-Dot-icp]

We want our money back!!

[@kronicali24]

good coverage, meld rugged, simple.

[@LearnCardano]

Thanks for the comments

[@Kam-Mobasser]

Yes, Ken f...ed us, the end.

[@DrWolves]

Good to see you so dedicated and committed to Cardano all these years, Pete. Your content is invaluable.

[@LearnCardano]

It’s been a long time. I try and support as many projects as possible.

[@petrlisa9572]

Pete, thank you 👍no words,hope that Xerberus will get to the bottom of this .👍👍👍

[@LearnCardano]

I hope so too

[@1kmiles]

Xerberus investigation will help understand.

[@LearnCardano]

yes, thankfully they are a part of the Cardano community

[@DrWolves]

Oh... on the bright side, I witnessed, for the first time, the incredible power of Xerberus 😮

[@ada-boy]

Are they going to do something?

[@LearnCardano]

Yeh. Xerberus is a super powerful tool. The timing for this and their sale is kinda uncanny. Can they legally do something, no. I don’t think so.

[@shannonjmgreen]

were is that xerberus vid at 20:00? can't find on twitter anywhere

[@LearnCardano]

It's in the show notes x.com/i/broadcasts/1DXxydENmLdJM

[@DavidDrew-n6z]

Meld just confirmed my general investment practice. Build slow and stake on boring projects. ( safe) chasing the fast money will get you slaughtered.

[@LearnCardano]

Yeh pretty true. Unless you can move fast as well and move before the market does. Otherwise you die with it.

[@nitrostudy9049]

Thanks Pete. At one stage my MELD were worth 5 figures 😞 2nd time I lost on a company trying to be a crypto bank of some form. Seems they were the antithesis of a lean startup. Whenever I tried to use anything they developed, it always looked MVP and gave me troubles. But by then 5 figures had moved to low 4 figures... so I kept hoping, rather than selling 😢

[@LearnCardano]

I never really looked at the charts for Meld as I wasn't following what they were doing. Very unfortunate.

[@forHeavenSakeOnUs]

We were sccamed. Lobstertrap.

[@LearnCardano]

What’s a lobster trap in reference to?

[@karenchrysostom7959]

This is one of the most insightful post mortems I have ever seen. Thanks for posting.

[@LearnCardano]

Glad it was helpful!

[@brianpackard9954]

Thanks for the deeper dive into this. I hope these guys that scam are caught and taught a lesson

[@LearnCardano]

I don’t know if anything will come from it and if anyone will be held accountable. Nothing happened with Ardana and nothing happened with Flickto etc.

[@brianpackard9954]

@LearnCardano It would be nice if they were held responsible

[@peterteoh6401]

You are doing great work informing the Cardano community. We greatly appreciate your hard work and dedication and love your content.

[@LearnCardano]

I appreciate that!

[@roninvagabond261]

Thanks for the deep dive! Very informative! 😮 This is despicable work I hope they get caught. Those funds should've went to the community. They realized that there were better platforms on the way they just were one of the first so they decided to cash out and run with everyones money! The one reason I wasn't using the lending protocol is because I couldn't get the crap to work!

[@LearnCardano]

I’m afraid like many others before, there is no consequences for a failed project.

[@roninvagabond261]

@@LearnCardano I hope there will be soon enough. People like this have no business being able to just cash out run off and start another business. I highly doubt they leave this alone. They'll be back under the guise of a new project eventually. We just need to make sure we recognize them next time.

[@zootechdrum]

Can someone explain it to like I am 5. I do not get that explanation at all.

[@LearnCardano]

- Meld raised 19M USD + 1B ADA. - Meld over spent and tried to build on Cardano but then pivoted to Avalanche. - Products they build had no users - It appears they were wash trading, sending tokens between wallets to make it look like there was activity and trading - Founder was seen asking people to provide liquidity to exchanges - Token was mass sold off right after - announcement after which they were sunsetting the platform. Millions spent on a flashy product that did work but didn't have users.

[@thomasroberts2600]

One of the saddest days of my time in the crypto market.

[@corvus400]

Saddest daywas when rat Gary Genslel at SEC was turning his back against crypto.

[@LearnCardano]

I'm sorry for your loss

[@ContemplativeCat]

Thanks for the update and more info Pete.

[@LearnCardano]

No worries

[@ada-boy]

Wow you didn't have to show us your revenue like that. That was very nice of you to share that to educate us. 👏

[@LearnCardano]

Yeh, the lesson there is don't start a YT channel expecting to make big money, unless you're making a kids YT channel like Cocomelon.

[@1102-z7m]

"for what ever reason there was that massive selloff" - "for what ever reason", the "reason" is where the rug/fraud comes in. Ken, via a tweet, asked the community to add more LQ as they were dumping on our heads. Ken was a used car salesman and pretended like he was something he was not and we were suckers.

[@LearnCardano]

I'm still waiting for the Xerberus guys to confirm that it was internal team wallets that did the selling on not VCs or Meld whales. Yes, what Ken did to ask the community to provide liquidity just before pressing the trigger button for himself, team or someone else to exist on is bad behaviour. Not how you treat the holders and supporters. I just can't confirm who did the mass sell off.

[@djberryhardkore]

Thanks for your transparency on ad revenue - it’s not much but appreciate the effort you put in.

[@LearnCardano]

If I get likes from you guys and comments, thats appreciated. Makes the video reach more people

[@JTC33]

I never got into meld. I tried to sign up but the process was so complicated to claim the free tokens that I just dropped the whole thing and never looked back.

[@LearnCardano]

Complicated signup process was poor design

[@petersaenz4864]

Since many people lost money but a lot of work clearly went into developing the platform, do you think the team could at least make the code available? It still has value, and even though I’m not a hardcore programmer, it would be great to look at the code and learn from it. It seems like such a waste to let all that effort go unused.

[@LearnCardano]

I hope they do make it open source or at least sell it to another company to take over

[@stakebrah5090]

I appreciate your videos. Thank you!

[@LearnCardano]

you're welcome

[@golfdegenerate]

Thanks for the recap, Pete

[@LearnCardano]

No worries!

[@JB-br6kq]

Glad I got out after the ISPO rewards. Felt they were moving in the right way but just didn't see anything delivered

[@LearnCardano]

A lot of the community sentiment put me off the project at the same time.

[@compostthewef]

No doubt! All planned! Do not be deceived!

[@LearnCardano]

It would have been in the best interest of the project owners to sell as much as possible to optimise their profits. But yeh, dump on the people that support them is brutal.

[@BertvanderGenugten]

I dodged the bullet on this one, I sold it a while ago because I had a bad feeling. Lost a bunch of money on Ardana (low life pieces of ..), and a bit on Adax and related projects.. but I blame myself for not doing enough research. Just learn from it and keep going, there are - and will be many more - great projects on Cardano! Thanks for your insights and keep it up!

[@LearnCardano]

I'm glad you didn't make a loss on it

[@Uborpriest]

Such a rough rug. We don't blame you. Heartbreaking challenges in cardano lately, let's hope the good times come back with the bull run. Charles in Washington, bull run here. Believe

[@LearnCardano]

I still have hope

[@drw5656]

Hey Peter - thanks for all your hard work - hope you get the reward you deserve- stay strong 💪

[@LearnCardano]

I've given up on that. lol

[@drw5656]

@ well at least keep boxing - haven’t seen a post of you in the ring for awhile

[@TimeTraveler6022]

I really believed in this project. It had good concepts.

[@LearnCardano]

I liked the idea as well, made sense to me but there was no way it would work in Australia where I am as it would hit capital gains tax no matter what which made it all pointless.

[@KAY-gg1wq]

You don't need to pay tax twice. There is an Income tax Treaty between Australia and the US that allows you to offset taxes paid in the US. There is no double taxation. I'm not in Australia or the US by the way, so you should check yourself!

[@LearnCardano]

KZbin takes the tax out of my account before I can do anything about it. $100 in ad revenue is a $70 payout and then I pay income tax on that. That’s what it is for me.

[@KAY-gg1wq]

@@LearnCardano That's too bad. Hope you find a way around it. Good luck and thanks for your great videos!

[@joeypatafondo4860]

I agree with what you've said. However if you are an educator then educate and keep the HYPE to yourself. Everyone knew MELD was a SCAM and lots of us commented on videos waring people but we were just told we are negative! Education is one thing.... promoting paid or not is another. Just my 2cents

[@GaaikeEuwema]

I agree with you on the fact it was pretty damn obvious it was a scam... And so many people warned about it. In the end everyone has a responsibility for themselves in crypto..

[@andystevenson3862]

I was calling out meld for months of bs DEV reports of crap wording

[@LearnCardano]

Thanks for the comment

[@d-not-u]

13:30 poor guys probably went all in thinking he would win and was left with nothing. I see no other reason for anyone who lost with MELD to completely give up. He had his back deal to promote the project, but it backed fired.

[@LearnCardano]

Josh felt guilty about it all. But it really isn't his fault.

[@johnbinstead8544]

i delegated a few wallets in the ISPO so luckily the ADA I lost was only from that. Sorry for the folks that invested and lost lots!! Makes me not want to delegate to ISPO's in the future and thats a shame. Def mismanagement of funds!!! They had 10's of millions which sounds like was squandered on exorbitant salaries.

[@LearnCardano]

Yeh same for me. I usually avoid ICOs, IDOs and ISPOs now. I just don't win out of them.

[@uunteguhsantoso5012]

After meld decided to move other chain i sell all my meld.i hope everyone who got hurt because meld i hope you ok and can recovery from your lost

[@LearnCardano]

Yeh thats when I stopped covering the project. I still mentioned it now and then but have been hoping for a Cardano chain launch. That never was going to happen.

[@benali6344]

Today genius yield team sold 1 000 000 gens ...

[@LearnCardano]

Can you send me some details here so I can track it down and see whats going on. I didn't see a direct sale of 1M gens. Was it in smaller batches at different price points?

[@carloferretti8956]

Reminder of the volatility of crypto

[@LearnCardano]

Yeh. Good reminder

[@raphipik]

Ken complains about lack of user but he barely tried to push his product that he’s been working on for so long. If this was my baby, I’d be everywhere pushing the hell out of it.

[@LearnCardano]

I haven’t been watching or keeping up with what they’ve been doing but yeh marketing to end users is the main goal.

[@consultante1650]

So they dropped the project because little participation. What do they expect in those supervolatile recent days. That everyone flock to Meld and forgets the rest. Patience! I was planning to check it out but had other stuff to do.

[@LearnCardano]

My general rule now is to see what the product is when its released and working and make a decision then to back it or not. Until then, its all smoke, mirrors and vapourware. I don't touch anything until there is a working product and user base.

[@2ndRenSoc]

This makes no sense, on congested blockchains this is not only a Cardano problem. Liquididations dont get executed on Avax as well to which they moved. I still dont get it why Meld moved off of Cardano which basically killed the project for me, they did not act truthfull in my book.

[@LearnCardano]

You're right. It's not the only chain that suffers from congestion, lag or downtime. Just about all of them do and there are many engineering ways to get around it. They should have launched on Cardano and put all their haters to rest.

[@carloferretti8956]

This also sent all those to liqwid finance. I remember there was a day when liqwid was non existent funny how these things work

[@LearnCardano]

Yeh. Liqwid has done well

[@francoisgagnonlemieux3135]

Yup lost a few hundred bucks with meld. Nothing too bad, it's risky business.

[@LearnCardano]

Few hundred isn't too bad compared to what I've heard from others. You got out lightly

[@francoisgagnonlemieux3135]

@LearnCardano yeah I wasnt too confident about it so I put way less than I did for minswap

[@JohanDeknudt]

I stopped caring about meld when they changed to a V2 token... and making an account on there failed numerous times. don't make stuff more complicated it realy made them look like ready to pull at any moment.

[@LearnCardano]

oh, I didn't know it was that hard. I didn't try so if that was a barrier to entry then I'm not surprised.

[@jupitereye4322]

But these massive volumes between wallets is something well known in crypt space. Exchanges do this as well to amp up activity. I think Algorand is probably one of the chains that does this the least, if at all... that is why its lagging behind the rest of the market. The thing is we still don't have serious growth in real use. What we need is Amazon volumes, we need real-world asset trading, we need what this technology was created for. Right now we are in a simulated blockchain economy, and not much happening compared to the real world.

[@LearnCardano]

Yeh right on. We need to be able to trade real things. Not memecoins and speculative assets or governance tokens. Don’t really care much for anything like that. I want gold, stocks and other commodities.

[@MattKirkTraining]

Ah bugger this is disappointing and frustrating it was my first ISPO.... Missed diamond hands by a month.

[@LearnCardano]

Dang. Maybe you missed it for good reason n

[@trancextend]

Bad actors are back.

[@LearnCardano]

Does that mean bull market?

[@rpsjms2]

Great video. Thanks for all the work and info.

[@LearnCardano]

You bet!

[@rubenmiranda6975]

Going after your fellow content creators because they became a shill and overlooked warning signs, leading to people who arent as learned lose their money, should be incentivised, hold fellow content creators accountable for a better ecosystem and beacause if you dont then your own reputation will go down with the rest as well... because crypto bros took so long to call each other out is the reason no one takes crypto tubers seriously and the industry with it

[@LearnCardano]

The law here in Australia is pretty strict when it comes to disclosure and what KZbinrs can talk about when it comes to financial products. Crypto included.

[@zugdigitalx]

They totally rugged

[@LearnCardano]

yeh whelp

[@samberg4521]

Still holding over 300k Meld? Somebody is going to buy it, it only makes sense...

[@drpaine7428]

It had a lot of promise but i wouldn't focus solely on MELD... Cardano has way way too much good going on to really be sad about MELD. hundreds of others projects... BitcoinOS... Charles advising the whitehouse.. etc... lets stay positive and enjoy the bull run in 2025

[@LearnCardano]

With all the things going on, I hope people diversified and were not hit by this

[@drpaine7428]

@@LearnCardano I agree, lets hope they make it up in this coming bull run... this is a great community to be part of .. hope everyone makes profit in 2025, even projects i dont hold.. Thanks for what you are doing.. your channel really helps people.

[@robtihanyi1155]

Dear Josh, I know you are reading these comments and wanted to pass on a personal message. In the time that I have followed you I have on many occasions been both inspired and educated by your passion and your very cerebral take on many of the issues that pop up in this space. The Meld thing does NOT directly fall to you imho because you are here to report, not to forensically evaluate every project before every post . I think that you possess a humbleness that is very rare for a 29yo bloke and would implore you to do whatever you need to do to get through this and come back bigger and better in the future...we miss you buddy...and we want you back.

[@LearnCardano]

Well said Rob! I'll pass on the message to him. Many have reached out to him.

[@robtihanyi1155]

@@LearnCardano It makes me very happy to hear that Pete...thanks man

[@danielarcher369]

That Ken post is nonsense, the meld app never worked properly, this was a rug from the start.

[@LearnCardano]

IT NEVER WORKED??? Fark!

[@thewolf5191]

Lost a lot of Ada and eth from the nomad bridge due to their negligent devs. It was an inside job. Nothing happened to them. They got away free. Nothing will happen to meld as well.

[@LearnCardano]

Nomad was a brutal hit to the entire crypto space along with some of the other bridge hacks that all happened at the same time, and you're right, it was too easy to blame other factors and shift the focus of the blame.

[@Its_just_me_again]

a bit of a stretch to be suggestive this is just another business which failed - blind freddy can see this was a rug pull - cardano paul's vid is unbias and makes things crystal clear

[@LearnCardano]

People certainly got rich off investors and speculators.

[@lowmax4431]

I'm glad i didnt put any money into this project.

[@LearnCardano]

Yeh. Many wish they were you.

[@thobekanimhlongo6317]

I delegated my ADA into your stakepool using meld wallet😂😂, I moved my ada from meld to Yoroi wallet and delegated using it.

[@LearnCardano]

Meld has its own wallet?

[@robtihanyi1155]

Sobering and informative Pete. I love that you support Josh and speak kindly of him because I do not think that he did anything wrong...other than doing his job...and the people that criticize him for that are simply hating on someone because they lost their money and they either did not or could not DYOR. My estimation of your character has only increased since the Meld issue and long may you continue to educate and inspire us with your knowledge and passion.

[@LearnCardano]

Nah. He really didn’t. When you have all the information in-front of you and details about funding and everything else, it’s hard to fathom how they could fail.

[@IngridaVajda]

Thanks for the perfect update. Thinking about investment diversification is certainly key, How do I properly invest in the market and what strategies do I employ to make significant gains and stable cashflow?

[@LearnCardano]

Yes diversification. I personally diversified out of crypto as well to reduce risk. That also reduces reward but I've got a family to look after and way too old to start over again.

[@felicityspyder]

Really appreciate your videos and hard work

[@LearnCardano]

Thanks, one day I might be able to make some decent money from YT. That time isn't yet.

[@1ampress]

i never trusted ken happy i did not buy much meld

[@LearnCardano]

You're lucky you went with that guy feeling

[@StefanKombrink]

isnt xerberus supposed to be a tool to estimate and predict the risk of projects? If so, how comes that even hours after the drop to almost zero it still reported a "BBB"-rating for MELD - whereas their rating for WMTx was just "B". I find this hilarious and will never use it!

[@LearnCardano]

I don't think it took into account wash trading by thousands of wallets.

[@yambhandari2999]

Come back Josh.. we need you..thanks Peter

[@LearnCardano]

I think he'll need more time off

[@grog1473]

XRAY ,ADAXX, MELD , ouch

[@LearnCardano]

Those three aren't in the same category of projects I think, but I get the idea. There was also FLICK and DANA if you want to add to your list.

[@gnosticnonsense9829]

Best ADA dev team- dead. What does that say about ADA ?

[@MushiMushiwc1uu]

@gnosticnonsense9829 Meld was the best Ada dev team? No. BitcoinOS, Charles in the White House, Midnight token....Cardano uptime and security.

[@GaaikeEuwema]

If they are the best dev team, then they would have developed something right?😅

[@LearnCardano]

They certainly were not the best ADA dev team. They built Meld on Avalanche Subnet. Far far away from Cardano.

[@DamianArthur-bw1so]

I only really got into crypto after the last bull run with meld being one of my first investments after Ethereum. On a whole none of my Cardano investments have paid off and some of the other projects just shut down, cardano on a whole has not been profitable, it is difficult to keep hopeful with things like this happening. The bull run for altcoins is in a couple months so we will see how it goes.

[@LearnCardano]

Alts on an alt chain is tough. Diversification and stop losses.

[@DrSpine]

This is so disappointing, I supplied my Meld to the supply side and I was wondering why no one was borrowing. Wish I would have sold. Hope Palm and Fraction Estate does not follow suit.

[@LearnCardano]

PALM have a good product and customers. As long as they keep getting users outside of crypto to use their commodity market then we're good there I think. Fraction Estate have a long hard road ahead of them but the RWA play by both of them is perfect. I wish them both the best.

[@Jeraestone]

Sounds Like it was a Kidology in Piggy Back Banking with Laundering the Smalls to Pull in the Gullible ! Playfix was another one I Lost out to= Kids Playing with Games !!

[@LearnCardano]

Play fix did not need to go down the path of a token. A standard SaaS product would have been fine.

[@rahulsham4014]

Still painful to watch and be reminded of.

[@LearnCardano]

yes still painful

[@forHeavenSakeOnUs]

Scambags

[@LearnCardano]

Disappointing

[@sleepingbee101]

waste my god damn money on these guys

[@LearnCardano]

yeh...

[@dajuggernaut2099]

What a scam!!!!

[@LearnCardano]

Unfortunately

[@zombi3lif3]

Project did washtrading to hide lack of activity, but investors should DYOR and uncover shady behavior. LOL! Nah! What crypto need is regulations, so justicesystem can pursue scammers, and return investment to the victims. Small crypto investors, are the only investors, that have to accept being rugged. When/if big investors for once end up on the wrong side of a scam, lawyers, justicesystem and lawenforcement all bend backward to bring them justice

[@LearnCardano]

Yes. Regulation and rules to stop it from happening in the first place.

[@zombi3lif3]

@@LearnCardano At least they would need to be dumb or smart enough, that they think they can fool the blockchain. But it will at least end the idea that fraud in crypto, is free money

[@markyap3865]

Meld hasn't delivered anything but empty promises. Glad I didn't invest in this project.

[@LearnCardano]

I thought they did deliver and launch all the things they promised. Am I wrong?

[@0x_cromosomes]

The only usecase for Blockchain technology is Bitcoin, forget the rest shipcoins

[@LearnCardano]

Bitcoin doesn’t fulfill many desired use cases other than a transfer and store of value.

[@0x_cromosomes]

@LearnCardano Exactly. Transfer and Store of value is what precisely Money has to accomplish. Nothing more nothing less. Bitcoin is the best money. Digital Gold

[@edthemercenary]

Crazy how charles is so quiet about this lol he just loves to bring the attention to him what a terrible leader he is

[@LearnCardano]

Don’t know if he even knows much about meld. No idea but he should really stay out of all projects

[@MooNwALKER....]

Meld didn't gain adoption because it was built on Cardano

[@LearnCardano]

They built on Avalanche, AVAX subnet, not Cardano. Get the facts right.

[@dpriggers]

I dont buy any of the explanation... Platofrm had been live for a very short time, cant expect a massive takeup! Most people dont know anything about crypto, so this needed massive marketing and plenty of time... I recokin VC's had a wobble, got impatient and decided to bail and the team started to withdraw to save themselves! Respect to Josh.. hope he has a break and look forward to seeing him back again soon...

[@LearnCardano]

That is a good theory