Acquire.fi — leading or misleading investors?
Acquire.fi is a project that created a good-looking tokenomics plan and raised ~$3,000,000 based on it.
But was it with a good intention? Was everything fair? Will let you decide.
Let’s start from the beginning.
Link to their tokenomics: https://docsend.com/view/dvfq6w7izi2nt3fq/d/5h2adbrs24mj3nkn
TGE
According to their tokenomics, at TGE (token generation event) there was a total of 3,900,000 ACQ (900,000 unlocked from the Public sale plus the tokens for liquidity), while everything else is locked.
There were 50+ questions about circulating supply in the days after TGE, however the team ghosted all those and a same generic answer was copy-pasted by their admin in their official telegram chat. This raised some red flags.
That answer was posted for a while, until they confirmed that circulating supply at TGE was indeed 3,900,000 ACQ:
It seems the same 3,900,000 number was also shared with Kucoin, as it can be seen in the picture below:
The official Kucoin info can be seen here: https://www.kucoin.com/news/en-acquirefi-acq-gets-listed-on-kucoin-world-premiere
Our math goes like this:
There is 900,000 ACQ from the public sale plus 1,000,000 ACQ deposit to Kucoin as part of the initial deal (Kucoin’s advertising budget request is usually $100,000, in ACQ that would be 1,000,000 ACQ), and we are assuming the 2,000,000 ACQ are for the MM (Acquire.fi’s marker maker):
- 900,000 ACQ from the public sale unlocked at TGE (15% from 6,000,000)
This is done through multiple transactions, one of the main ones is: https://etherscan.io/tx/0xa0b74c55637188caf95d3c9e7ec8cbaeafa5418fc8200c3264c421d4b436d77b - 1,000,000 ACQ sent to Kucoin (as part of the original deal):
https://etherscan.io/tx/0x7cdc8b4e4128bcd7e3ad084e0e14773882b984a3dcfdd0d0a6752759370be08d - 2,000,000 to a hop address that deposited those tokens to Kucoin (assuming this is the marketmaker/MM they mentioned):
https://etherscan.io/tx/0x678f26baeb30273c55d579c4f8acf4d39704584db67e4041d70ea5fc20426dea
The main problem comes a bit later, when we are doing some on-chain analysis and we can see that additional 4,000,000 ACQ tokens are transferred by the Acquire.fi team to Kucoin’s wallet right after TGE (through 1 hop address, this might be the MM again as it is the same address that received 2,000,000 ACQ tokens pre-TGE).
The transactions can be verified through the following link: https://etherscan.io/token/0x4bdcb66b968060d9390c1d12bd29734496205581?a=0xd04245941b517fffa3f2b12a1f2f9430de3bf1fe
Did the team share fake info about circulating supply with the users, investors and Kucoin? Let’s ask them.
When asked about these transactions and how come these tokens were transferred when they are suppose to be locked, Acquire.fi’s CEO gave this response in their official telegram chat:
And below we can see another reply from an Acquire.fi team team member and admin, who is saying that “the tokens might’ve been transferred to Kucoin’s hot wallet for being locked”, changing the narrative:
To counter this, there are no big ACQ outflows from Kucoin to another defi wallet in the following 2 days after TGE. And even after that there are only small ACQ outflow transactions to users, mostly in the range of 10,000–20,000 ACQ, nothing in the millions. That can be verified by looking at on-chain data here:
https://etherscan.io/token/0x4bdcb66b968060d9390c1d12bd29734496205581?a=0xf16e9b0d03470827a95cdfd0cb8a8a3b46969b91
And I guess everyone who knows the first thing about crypto & defi, is aware that you do not transfer tokens to an exchange’s hot wallet in order to “lock them away”. You transfer them to sell.
But no need to trust our words, let’s take another look at on-chain data:
In the picture above we can see that $447,638 USDC are being withdrawn from Kucoin to an Acquire.fi multisig account.
This transaction is 1 day after TGE, 1 day after the 4,000,000 ACQ are transferred to Kucoin.
Is this a confirmation that the Acquire.fi team actually sold those 4,000,000 tokens? 🤷🏼♂️
The transaction is done in the same way as the 6,000,000 ACQ transfers, through 1 hop address (the MM?).
Links:
- Transfer of $447,638 USDC from 0x665b3f4ac447f182c5d66a8d8071fa5a1e1e2743 (hop address) to 0x23f3a48ee8e4ca11cf0a036e190e4532fc94f629 (team wallet):
https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb1b39eff93df7e92c9964b669516481e388a9a3e74660eea54eaf8fa8d307372 - Transfer of $299,950 USDC from Kucoin to 0x665b3f4ac447f182c5d66a8d8071fa5a1e1e2743 (hop address):
https://etherscan.io/tx/0xfb298e4939e371d67c0b46087f6c4cf7f012ab47a8a61e05c7d7e4b646216821
There are a lot more USDC transfers from Kucoin to the hop address, prior to the hop address forwarding them to Acquire.fi’s team address, all of those can be seen on the link below:
https://etherscan.io/token/0xa0b86991c6218b36c1d19d4a2e9eb0ce3606eb48?a=0x665b3f4ac447f182c5d66a8d8071fa5a1e1e2743
After being presented with the on-chain evidence of the final transfer of ~450,000 USDC from Kucoin to the team, instead of providing answers, the Acquire.fi decided to delete all the posts related to this in their public telegram chat and muted the users who were asking questions: https://t.me/AcquireFi
Fortunately, the on-chain data cannot be deleted and cannot be manipulated.
Another fortunate circumstance is that the Acquire.fi team is public, so if they have done any wrongdoing, they can be held responsible.
TL;DR
TL;DR: According to Acquire.fi, ACQ circulating supply at TGE was 3,900,000 ACQ. On-chain evidence shows that the team deposited at least 4,000,000 additional ACQ to Kucoin on day 1 (this amount was not supposed to be available in any way. It was supposed to be locked according to the project’s whitepaper and their documents.)
With this step, all investors are basically misled and they have been manipulated and used.
Legal grounds for asking the project to close shop and ask to refund all investors? Maybe even legal grounds to do more?
We encourage all investors to take a good look at the information above and decide if they are being misled.
- is the team selling their own tokens (which are supposed to be locked), at the expense of the investors and users?
- is the team using the investor funds only to get paychecks and build nothing in the meantime?
This is a list of all the companies/projects that are listed as Acquire.fi’s partners.
Feel free to reach out to these partners and make sure all of them are aware of this post. Also feel free to reach out to Kucoin, it is possible that fake info was shared with them too (according to Kucoin’s article, there should be 3,900,000 circulating ACQ at TGE, which means someone gave them false info).
For being listed on Kucoin, contracts must be signed prior. So we are sure Kucoin can terminate this relationship based on these lies & even consider legal options.
Final thoughts
A number of people are already interested in the truth. So many questions are without an answer. Investors are concerned.
Are you one of them? In that case please join this unofficial telegram group https://t.me/+EzkOROjbEac3NGFk
where everyone can speak freely on this topic.
* Technical note: All the info provided in this article is public and can be found using the Etherscan.com website, Gnosis-safe.io website, Acquire.fi website, Acquire.fi’s telegram group, DocSend.com website, Kucoin.com website.
For the on-chain investigators
- Team multisig wallet: https://etherscan.io/address/0x23f3A48eE8E4cA11CF0a036e190E4532FC94f629
- Owners/signers of the multisig: https://gnosis-safe.io/app/eth:0x23f3A48eE8E4cA11CF0a036e190E4532FC94f629/settings/owners
- ACQ token: https://etherscan.io/token/0x4bdcb66b968060d9390c1d12bd29734496205581
- Another team address: https://etherscan.io/address/0x3c24c874add5c0015b1f5b6eba65ffc4f24bd95d
