Oyster [PRL] exit scam after smart contract manipulated to print 3 million tokens: Price takes 65% hit

One of the most-hyped projects on the IOTA [MIOTA] blockchain, known as Oyster, recently underwent a blow to their functioning. Bruno Blocks, the pseudonymous creator of the coin, re-activated the ICO for the coin’s native PRL token and reissued around 3 million new Pearl Tokens.

This resulted in a sharp drop in the price of close to 65%, as around $300,000 in funds were extracted from KuCoin exchange where Bruno sold the tokens.

This prompted a reply from the CEO of Oyster, William Cordes. He clarified the doubts of the community, stating that a function known as transferDirector on the Oyster smart contract was utilized to carry out the scam. After around $300,000 was withdrawn, Oyster was able to put a stop to the process in conjunction with KuCoin. He went on to say:

“Oyster passing three separate smart contract audits, we were told by Bruno Block that the directorship of the token contract had to remain open so that the peg could be adjusted over time.”

However, this turned out to be a “trapdoor mechanism” revealed Cordes. This was exploited to allow Bruno to scam the coin, as it was written by him prior to the ICO. Moreover, he stated that these were “solely the actions of Bruno Block”, who carried out the scam at this precise time to “avoid detection from KuCoin KYC procedures”, which were set to be implemented on November 1.

This was due to KuCoin’s non-KYC accounts not having the ability to withdraw more than 2 Bitcoin [BTC] per day, which would have thrown a spanner in the works of Bruno’s plans. Cordes said in a statement:

“The team has been working tirelessly on this since day one, without pay at some points in time. This project has been built on the back of hard work and raw determination and we will not let Bruno’s role as a bad actor in all of this undermine a project that the entire rest of the team is completely devoted to.”

He went on to assure PRL holders that their holdings are safe and that Oyster is most likely to execute a contract swap. This will occur on the block before the smart contract was compromised, allowing users to exchange their tokens in a 1:1 ratio.

Reportedly, the $300,000 stolen by Bruno represented around 1.5% of the market cap of the coin. However, investor sentiment seems to be irreversibly damaged, apparent from both the 65% loss in the value of the coin and the multiple posts made by community members across Reddit. User Serial Investor stated:

“We the people of iota need to make it happen, and now that Oyster is gone, and PRL is gone, we can take their work, repurpose it, and give it a new name, a slightly different protocol, and instead of using prl, we can use qubic and have iotas for payments. I think PRL is done. It’s dead jim, and its not coming back. The code can be repurposed, mixed into other projects.”