Author: Eric, Foresight News
At the end of 2022, I reviewed the bizarre events that occurred that year. Three years later, I am summarizing Web3 in 2025 in the same way.
Time has passed, and Web3 in 2025 has undergone significant changes compared to three years ago. Low-level mistakes like sending to the wrong address or setting incorrect parameters have become rare. Although the events of this year are not as "funny" as those of the past, their absurdity is unparalleled, proving that human nature, the greatest playwright, continues to exert its influence.
Mysterious Team Manipulates Presidential Concept Meme Coin, Harvests Over $100 Million
Event Overview
At the beginning of the year, the issuance of the Meme coin TRUMP by the newly elected U.S. President Trump became widely known. Subsequently, First Lady Melania Trump and Argentine President Milei promoted their associated tokens, MELANIA and LIBRA, on their personal social media on January 20 and February 15, 2025, respectively (Milei's tweet has since been deleted).
There’s not much to say about the issuance of the coin by the First Lady; it’s not new for issuers to sell off in the PvP Meme coin circle, and everyone who loses just considers it bad luck.
However, there was a problem with Milei. Within hours of the LIBRA token going live, the project team withdrew $87 million in USDC and SOL from the liquidity pool, causing the price to plummet by over 80%. This kind of withdrawal behavior is something that the P small players cannot tolerate, leading to public outcry. After the incident escalated, Milei deleted the tweet and initiated an anti-corruption investigation. The community later exposed KIP Protocol and Kelsier Ventures behind LIBRA, but KIP Protocol claimed to only be responsible for technical oversight, while Kelsier Ventures' Hayden Davis accused the presidential team of "backtracking" and causing panic.
Subsequently, Bubblemaps conducted a rigorous on-chain fund flow analysis and discovered that both MELANIA and LIBRA's deployment addresses were highly correlated with the same address, involving Rug Pull projects like TRUST, KACY, and VIBES. Kelsier Ventures, the market maker for LIBRA, was also referred to as a "family-style crime group" by crypto KOLs.
Additionally, it was later revealed that there was a "traitor" within Milei's government, with a close aide receiving $5 million to facilitate the president's promotion of LIBRA. A few million dollars for over a hundred million is indeed a profitable deal.
Reason for Inclusion
This may be the "least words, biggest event" farce in this article. When capital and politics join forces for "open robbery," who can we still trust?
Absurdity Index: ★★★★★
Infini Employee Embezzles Nearly $50 Million While Trading Coins
Event Overview
On February 24, 2025, Beijing time, the stablecoin digital bank Infini was hacked, with $49.5 million flowing out from the Morpho MEVCapital Usual USDC Vault. After the incident, Infini founder Christian immediately admitted to the theft and promised to fully compensate even in the worst-case scenario.
The Infini team then addressed the hacker on-chain, stating that they had obtained a lot of information about the hacker and that if the hacker returned 80% of the funds (with 20% as a white hat bounty), they would not pursue further action. On February 26, the Infini team issued an ultimatum on-chain, but the hacker still took no action. The next day, Christian announced that a formal case had been filed in Hong Kong regarding the Infini hacking incident.
In less than a month, Infini announced the lawsuit documents, and the "hacker" was confirmed to be a capable developer within the Infini team, who was well-trusted by the team.
The engineer, named Chen Shanxuan, originally had the highest authority to manage the company's and clients' fund contracts. After completing the development, he was supposed to transfer the authority, but he quietly retained control over the contract by keeping the address he controlled, taking advantage of the team's trust. So the so-called hacking incident was actually a farce of embezzlement.
As for why this individual took the risk, the Infini team stated that they discovered Chen Shanxuan had developed a gambling addiction after the theft incident. Despite earning millions annually, he was borrowing money to open contracts, and as his online loan debts grew, he ultimately went down an irreversible path. According to Colin Wu, Chen Shanxuan was previously a model for sharing technical knowledge, and his downfall is indeed lamentable.
Reason for Inclusion
Entrepreneurship is different from investment; when transitioning from high-level "cognitive monetization" to "getting hands dirty," Web3 entrepreneurs still need to hone their skills. One more point: unless you are exceptionally gifted, do not touch contracts.
Absurdity Index: ★
UMA Whale Manipulates Oracle Results to Forcefully "Alter Reality"
Event Overview
On March 25, 2025, Beijing time, a oracle attack occurred on Polymarket, which had gained immense popularity due to the U.S. presidential election. In the market for "Will Ukraine agree to Trump's mineral agreement before April?", as the deadline approached, the probability of "Yes" was close to 0, but suddenly on the evening of March 25, it reversed, and the probability of "Yes" shot up to 100%.
The reason for the reversal was not that Zelensky had backed down, but that a UMA whale participating in this $7 million market used their large holdings of UMA to forcefully alter the facts. User DeFiGuyLuke explained the details (https://x.com/DeFiGuyLuke/status/1904804207452184622):
When Polymarket needs event results, it first submits a data request, and the proposer submits data and pays a deposit of 750 USDC. After submitting the request, there is a period of dispute; if others disagree with the result, they can raise an objection and pay an equal deposit. Finally, all UMA holders vote together to determine the truth.
In the market for the Ukraine mineral agreement, a whale holding 5 million UMA, seeing that they were about to lose money, voted for the incorrect result. This voting created a demonstration effect, causing ordinary users to worry about being unable to compete with the whale and to go along with the crowd, ultimately leading to this situation.
Polymarket officially admitted afterward that this was a mistake but considered it part of the game rules and refused to modify the result. In August 2025, UMA introduced a whitelist mechanism, allowing only Polymarket-approved entities to propose solutions to reduce malicious manipulation, but this did not change the core oracle; it merely optimized the governance process.
Reason for Inclusion
Can Polymarket's approach be considered a manifestation of decentralization? As a new generation of truth machines, the disregard for incorrect oracle results should be seen as a design flaw in the product.
Absurdity Index: ★★★
TUSD Fund Misappropriation Mystery: Is It a Mistake or Deliberate?
Event Overview
On April 3, 2025, Beijing time, Sun Yuchen held a press conference in Hong Kong, accusing the Hong Kong trust institution First Digital Trust of illegally transferring $456 million of TUSD reserve funds and demanding that relevant law enforcement agencies investigate the matter. However, the Hong Kong court rejected Sun Yuchen's request. Just a month prior, the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) court issued a global freeze order, freezing $456 million in assets related to TrueUSD's issuer Techteryx. The court found evidence of a breach of trust and ordered a global freeze to protect the assets.
The truth about this matter is widely debated, and there is no definitive conclusion yet. I will provide some public information here.
Techteryx Ltd. (an investment company registered in the British Virgin Islands) acquired the TrueUSD stablecoin business at the end of 2020 and has since been responsible for its operation and management. Based on historical business continuity, the original operator TrueCoin, located in California, was retained to continue managing the reserves and executing and coordinating at the banking level, with TrueCoin selecting the Hong Kong trust institution First Digital Trust as the custodian of the reserve funds. Public information shows that Sun Yuchen is the "Asia market advisor" for Techteryx, but in the DIFC 2025 documents and hearings, Sun Yuchen was described as the "ultimate beneficial owner" of Techteryx. To some extent, Sun Yuchen has control over Techteryx but is not the legal representative on the surface.
However, this inconsistency in identity laid the groundwork for what happened next. From Sun Yuchen's perspective, the situation is as follows:
From 2021 to 2022, TrueCoin formed a close relationship with its selected Hong Kong trust institutions FDT and some management of Legacy Trust as a trustee and established a secret channel for fund outflow with the Cayman Islands-registered fund Aria Commodity Finance Fund (referred to as "ACFF"). Sun Yuchen stated, "With control over reserve fund instructions and funding paths, unauthorized forged documents and fabricated investment instructions were submitted multiple times to the bank with false statements."
Court evidence shows that the two parties did not deposit the reserve funds into the compliant Cayman Islands-registered fund ACFF as agreed but instead illegally transferred up to $456 million in fiat reserves in batches to the Dubai-based Aria DMCC company. Aria DMCC is a privately held company established in Dubai by Matthew Brittain, a British citizen who is the actual controller of ACFF, and Aria DMCC is not an investment entity authorized by Techteryx.
In simple terms, Sun Yuchen believes that Techteryx requested FDT to transfer the reserve funds to ACFF, but FDT instead transferred the money to Aria DMCC, which is suspected of misappropriating funds.
From FDT's perspective, the situation is as follows:
An "authorized representative" of Techteryx, Lorraine, requested FDT to transfer the reserve funds to ACFF. However, FDT believed it had not received a request from the true actual controller of Techteryx and, due to distrust of this representative, did not transfer the funds to ACFF but instead to Aria DMCC (I also don't quite understand this logic; the two companies are actually closely connected, but FDT did not provide further explanation) and stated that the current allocation of funds could still yield returns.
The key point is that FDT believes they have never embezzled these funds, and as long as the actual controller of Techteryx speaks up, they can retrieve the money. The crucial part is that you must prove you are the actual controller of Techteryx.
There are two ways to retrieve the $456 million: either Techteryx's apparent actual controller comes forward to request FDT to retrieve the funds, or it needs to be proven that FDT's actions were illegal or non-compliant, prompting the court to order FDT to withdraw the funds. However, given Sun Yuchen's special identity, only the latter method can be employed.
The most interesting aspect of this event is that during an online court hearing regarding Techteryx, which Sun Yuchen did not attend because he claimed he was not the legal person of Techteryx, a person named Bob suddenly appeared. The judge asked him to turn on his camera, and when the camera was turned on, it turned out to be Sun Yuchen.
This behavior sparked speculation in the community: even if FDT did not transfer the money as required, Sun Yuchen's unwillingness to serve as the apparent legal person of Techteryx, thus avoiding legal responsibility, led many to question whether there was really any misappropriation of funds. Many also joked that it was finally Sun's turn to defend his rights.
Reason for Inclusion
It is possible that FDT also misappropriated funds by exploiting unclear relationships, or perhaps, as they claim, they did this for the sake of fund security. We can only wait for the final outcome. The world is unpredictable; sometimes, cleverness backfires.
Absurdity Index: ★★★★
Zerebro Co-founder Jeffy "Fake Death" Controversy
Event Overview
On May 4, 2025, Beijing time, 22-year-old Zerebro co-founder Jeffy Yu conducted a live stream on the pump.fun platform, but afterward, several community users claimed, "Jeffy Yu committed suicide during the live stream; after smoking a cigarette, Jeffy pointed a gun at his neck and pulled the trigger, after which the screen fell silent."
The related video quickly spread on Twitter, and many community users expressed their sorrow. However, since the authenticity of the video was never confirmed, some users began to question whether this was a marketing stunt.
One reason for the skepticism was that Jeffy Yu had published an article about "Legacoin" before the live stream. In the article, Jeffy introduced the concept of the "inheritance meme coin" Legacoin (derived from legacy memecoin), with the core idea being that developers promise to only buy and not sell related assets, permanently locking them on the blockchain after their death to achieve "the eternal existence of digital inheritance." Coincidentally, on the day of the live stream, a token named LLJEFFY was launched on the pump.fun platform.
On May 5, the obituary platform Legacy published news about Jeffy Yu's death. Although it did not name him directly, the community generally accepted that this Jeffy Yu was the co-founder of Zerebro. The next day, Jeffy Yu's Mirror account also featured an article that was automatically published under certain conditions, containing the classic line, "If you see this article, it proves I am dead…"
In addition to this classic opening, the article included what Jeffy Yu referred to as his final artwork, the LLJEFFY "Legacoin," as well as his expressed disdain for money: "Once I became a little wealthy and a little famous online, everything meaningful collapsed—friends, family, romantic relationships, co-founders. Everything became impure."
Amidst the sighs, a reversal quietly arrived. KOL Irene Zhao and DeFi developer Daniele exposed Jeffy's "fake death plan." According to a leaked letter, Jeffy stated that he had long been harassed and scammed by a former partner and was then targeted by another person for extortion. In the letter, Jeffy expressed that his personal address and phone number were frequently made public, seriously endangering his personal safety. These malicious acts also included various hate speech targeting his race, gender identity, and personal achievements.
Although Jeffy wanted to exit directly, he feared that a public announcement would lead to a crash in the coin's price, resulting in more severe consequences, so he chose to stage a "fake death" to fade from public view. Afterward, Lookonchain discovered that on May 7, a wallet possibly related to Jeffy Yu sold 35.55 million ZEREBRO, obtaining 8,572 SOL (approximately $1.27 million), and then transferred 7,100 SOL (approximately $106,000) to the LLJEFFY developer wallet (address starting with G5sjgj). So whether this incident was truly Jeffy being scared and wanting to exit through a fake death or just wanting to cash out and disappear more safely remains uncertain.
Reason for Inclusion
Betrayal and threats are not news in the business world. When you participate in a gamble with no guarantees, you should know that this is a game where life and death are at stake, and wealth is in the hands of fate.
Absurdity Index: ★★★
Sui "Freezes" Hacker Funds, Sparking "Centralization Issue" Discussion
Event Overview
On May 22, 2025, Beijing time, Cetus, the largest DEX on Sui, was attacked due to a code issue with numerical precision, resulting in the theft of $223 million in liquidity. Just two hours after the theft, Cetus announced that it had frozen $162 million of the stolen funds.
As for how the funds were "frozen," the official Sui Chinese account provided an explanation: Sui requires a 2/3 majority of nodes to vote in favor of a transaction for it to be executed. Therefore, in this instance, 2/3 of the nodes in the Sui network selectively ignored transactions from the hacker's address, preventing the hacker from transferring these funds out. Aside from approximately $60 million worth of funds cross-chain to Ethereum, the assets the hacker left on Sui were directly intercepted by the nodes on the network.
So how will the stolen funds be retrieved? Chaofan, an engineer from Solayer, stated that the Sui team has been requesting every validator on Sui to deploy a patch code so that they can "retrieve" the money without the attacker's signature. However, Sui validators reported that they had not received such a "request," and Chaofan later indicated that Sui validators had not deployed the relevant code.
Reason for Inclusion
In this discussion, the significance of centralization versus decentralization is not substantial. What we really want to ask is, if I mistakenly transferred funds on Sui, would Sui help me retrieve them in the same way? This may be a more thought-provoking question after the "exception."
Absurdity Index: ☆
Conflux "Reverse Shell Listing" Failure
Event Overview
On July 1, 2025, Beijing time, Hong Kong-listed company Pioneer Pharma Biotechnology Limited announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Northwestern Foundation (the seller) and Conflux regarding a potential acquisition of all shares of the target company, contingent upon the target company completing the acquisition of Conflux's assets as per the agreement. The Conflux assets include several assets related to the Conflux blockchain and associated technologies and/or Conflux's business, which will be determined by Pioneer Pharma Biotechnology Limited.
To simplify, Conflux is attempting a reverse shell listing. Why is it called reverse? Because a typical shell listing involves a company seeking to go public acquiring a listed company, but in Conflux's case, the operation is reversed.
Some may ask why this is considered a shell listing rather than a simple acquisition. Because as early as early April, Pioneer Pharma announced that Dr. Long Fan and Dr. Wu Ming had become executive directors of the company, and these two are the founders of Conflux. On August 21, Pioneer Pharma announced plans to issue 145 million placement shares, netting HKD 58.825 million. The company intends to use the net proceeds from the placement for funding the group's development of blockchain technology business. Subsequently, at the end of September, Pioneer Pharma Biotechnology was renamed Star Chain Group.
Theoretically, riding the wave of Web3, the stock price should soar. The good news is that it did indeed fly for a while; the bad news is that it subsequently fell even more. On September 12, a previous financing plan of nearly $60 million was aborted because certain conditions were not met by September 11, leading to a sharp drop in stock price. After the renaming at the end of September, the stock price plummeted even further…
On November 17, 2025, before the market opened, Star Chain announced that it had been ordered by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to suspend trading on November 26 due to the exchange's doubts about the company's failure to meet ongoing listing qualifications.
Reason for Inclusion
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange using "failure to meet ongoing listing qualifications" as a reason for suspension has already given enough face. Although Hong Kong does indeed strongly support the development of Web3, such behavior does seem to treat others as fools.
Absurdity Index: ★★★★
"Returning to the Country Next Week" Accountant Jia is Here to Raise Funds in the Crypto Circle
Event Overview
On August 17, 2025, Beijing time, Faraday Future (FF), an electric vehicle company under Jia Yueting that has a quarterly income of several hundred thousand dollars and a net loss of over a hundred million, announced the launch of the "C10 Index" and the "C10 Treasury" products based on this index, officially entering the crypto asset field.
The C10 Index tracks the top ten cryptocurrencies globally (excluding stablecoins), including mainstream assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. The C10 Treasury adopts an investment model of 80% passive and 20% active, ensuring sustainable returns. According to its official website, FF will use special financing funds specifically to purchase crypto assets, meaning FF aims to raise funds from the market and use that money to buy crypto assets. The first phase goal is to acquire $500 million to $1 billion in crypto assets after obtaining the necessary funds, with an initial allocation of $30 million expected to start as early as this week. The long-term vision is to expand to a scale of $10 billion, achieving compound growth through staking returns.
After the official announcement, Boss Jia indeed managed to raise funds, even investing $30 million in Qualigen Therapeutics, Inc. through Faraday to help it transition to crypto assets, with Boss Jia personally serving as an advisor.
Not long ago, Boss Jia even announced a partnership with Tesla, stating that Faraday's new models could directly connect to Tesla's Supercharger network, and later expressed a willingness to collaborate comprehensively with Tesla on FSD technology.
Reason for Inclusion
One can only say that Accountant Jia indeed has some skills that ordinary people cannot learn. This matter does not receive five stars simply to give a face to Milei.
Absurdity Index: ★★★★☆
USDX Project "Borrowing Money to Cash Out," Founder "Has Impressive Achievements"
Event Overview
On November 5, 2025, Beijing time, after xUSD suffered huge losses due to a third-party "curator," a user named 0xLoki discovered that what originally required only a one-day wait to redeem the stablecoins used to mint sUSDX was now being ignored by addresses that drained all liquidity from pools on Euler that could use USDX and sUSDX as collateral, despite an annualized interest rate of over 30%.
USDX is issued by usdx.money, which announced last year that it had completed a $45 million financing at a valuation of $275 million. The mechanism of USDX is almost identical to that of USDe, with the only difference being that USDX also executes a delta-neutral strategy on altcoins, as stated by the project team, to achieve higher returns.
Through my investigation, I found that two suspicious addresses began receiving large amounts of USDX and sUSDX from late October and swept away all on-chain liquidity channels that could be monetized through lending, DEX trading, etc., leaving many lending platforms with bad debts. The problem, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, is that this stablecoin only requires a one-day wait to redeem the originally invested USDT.
Even more frightening is that one of the two suspicious addresses is directly related to Flex Yang, the founder of USDX's issuing party usdx.money. If the founder is in a hurry to cash out, is there any other explanation besides the project already having issues? Just after my article was published, USDX began to experience severe de-pegging, confirming the assertion that the project indeed had problems. Subsequently, on November 8, Stables Labs tweeted that it would help affected users based on existing resources and opened a registration channel, but this was also the last tweet from Stables Labs to date, and we do not know how the actual progress is.
Continuing to dig deeper, Flex Yang is also the founder of PayPal Finance and HOPE. PayPal encountered insolvency issues during the bear market in 2022, similar to many institutions, and subsequently fell into a long restructuring process, with its future still uncertain today; as for HOPE, it has been struggling since its lending products were attacked, and although it has not truly "run away," it has gradually faded from the market.
Reason for Inclusion
The greatest lesson people learn from history is that people never learn from history. Entrepreneurs repeatedly fail but continue to fight, yet issues related to risk control keep arising. Are they truly being targeted, or are they stealing from themselves?
Absurdity Index: ★★★
Berachain Gave Venture Capitalists "Original Price Exit" Clause
Event Overview
On November 25, Beijing time, according to Unchained, documents it disclosed show that the Layer1 project Berachain provided a special refund right clause to the Nova Digital fund under Brevan Howard during its Series B financing, making the latter's $25 million investment nearly "zero risk."
Berachain co-founder Smokey the Bera denied the accuracy of the report in a subsequent response, emphasizing that Brevan Howard remains one of the project's largest investors, with its investment involving multiple complex business agreements, and that the terms for Nova Digital were set to guard against the failure of token launches. Berachain mentioned that the Nova fund proactively approached and proposed to lead this round of financing, with its investment based on unified terms. Additionally, the controversial accompanying agreement was to meet the compliance team's requirements at Nova, rather than to ensure that the investment principal would not suffer market losses. Brevan Howard remains one of the largest token holders of Berachain and continues to increase its holdings of BERA amid market fluctuations, contrary to what the report implied about having exited.
According to the disclosed documents, Nova Digital invested $25 million in Berachain in March 2024, purchasing BERA tokens at a price of $3 each. As a co-lead investor in the Series B financing, the fund obtained the right to request a full refund within one year after the TGE through a side agreement signed on March 5, 2024. This means that if the price performance of BERA tokens is poor, Nova Digital can request Berachain to return the entire investment principal by February 6, 2026.
Another focal point of the controversy is whether Berachain should disclose this special clause to other Series B investors. Two anonymous Series B investors stated that the project team did not inform them that Nova Digital had a refund right. Lawyers pointed out that this could violate the disclosure requirements for "material information" under securities law.
Reason for Inclusion
If Berachain's maneuver is true, it can essentially be deemed as exploiting Nova Digital's reputation for hype, akin to fraud. So do you still naively believe that Web3 should not accept strong regulation?
Absurdity Index: ★★★
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