Solana Bots Aqua disappeared after raising 4.65 million USD, suspected of being involved in a "carpet" scam.

The Solana (SOL) trading platform Aqua, after receiving endorsements from multiple ecosystem partners, completing a security audit, and successfully raising $4.65 million, was recently accused by blockchain investigator ZachXBT of allegedly conducting a "rug pull" operation, absconding with 21,770 SOL. The incident quickly ignited the cryptocurrency community.

From Star Projects to Heavy Doubts

Aqua positions itself as a high-performance trading infrastructure, promising to achieve "democratized access beyond insiders and whales," and claims to have processed over $90 million in trading volume with a delay of only a few milliseconds.

Token Economics: AQUA token distributes transaction fees through buyback and burn as well as staking rewards.

Fundraising model: public presale address, investors send SOL and will receive tokens upon launch.

Fundraising results: Raised 1 million USD in just 30 minutes.

Multiple Endorsements and Security Audits

Aqua has previously collaborated with well-known Solana ecosystem projects such as Meteora, Helius, SYMMIO, and Dialect for promotional efforts, and has been highly recommended by several KOLs in the encryption community.

The security auditing organization QuillAudits gave a high score of 99.7% on August 31, praising its commitment to security.

Fund Flow and Suspected "Running Away"

ZachXBT's investigation shows that just hours before he released the report, the Aqua presale funds were split into four intermediary addresses and subsequently transferred to multiple instant exchanges.

Team response: Disable reply function on X (formerly Twitter)

Partner's response: Ethos Network CEO confirmed that the Aqua team has been disbanded and deleted Telegram messages.

Meteora co-founder Soju admitted that the internal audit process could be improved.

"Liquidity Ladder" and Investor Trust Crisis

Aqua adopts the so-called "liquidity ladder" model, claiming to ensure fair price discovery and deep liquidity, avoiding traditional pre-sales that favor institutional investors. However, after the incident broke out, the credibility of this model was called into question.

Aqua subsequently published a new smart contract address and stated that the Medium account was suspended, preventing further details from being published. However, as of the time of writing, no further explanations have been provided.

has not been officially classified as fraud

Despite the highly suspicious behavior of fund transfers, no official agency has formally confirmed that Aqua is involved in fraud. However, the incident has sparked widespread discussion within the community regarding the review mechanisms for presale projects and the effectiveness of security audits.

Conclusion

The Aqua incident highlights the harsh reality in the cryptocurrency market that "high endorsement + high audit scores ≠ absolute safety." For investors, even projects backed by ecological giants must remain highly vigilant, diversify investments, and closely monitor the flow of funds in order to protect themselves in a market where risks and opportunities coexist.