Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has issued a warning against ZKasino, a recently launched cryptocurrency project.
“It has nothing to do with ZK Technology”
Buterin said in a warpcast: “ZCasino has nothing to do with 'ZK' technology, other than the fact that it works on zksync. Even the word 'ZK' has become such a common word that scammers have adopted it.”
The project named ZKasino went into operation over the weekend, but was met with reaction from investors. The company is under fire for sending $33 million worth of user deposits to staking platform Lido. This move raised suspicions of fraud and prevented users from withdrawing their assets.
Prior to launch, ZKasino had opened a token bridge that allowed investors to deposit Ethereum (ETH) to earn ZKAS, the platform's native token. Initially, the website stated that bridged ETHs would be “refunded” once the bridging period expired. However, this statement has since been removed.
ZKasino announced in a blog post on April 20 that “all bridged Ethereum has been converted into native gas tokens ZKAS at a discounted price of $0.055.” “This conversion was done as a favor to our users who have built the bridge to join the ecosystem,” the company added.
Blockchain data shows that $33 million worth of ETH deposited by more than 10,000 users was later sent by ZKasino to staking platform Lido. This action further increased the concerns of investors and the crypto community in general.
*This is not investment advice.