The token launch platform on Robinhood Chain, vladfun, was immediately faced with internal developer "backstabbing" upon launch, with self-created tokens hardcoded for priority display.

Written by: Nicky, Foresight News

On July 15, an internal malicious operation incident occurred on the token launch platform vladfun as soon as it went live. According to official information, two external developers involved in the platform's construction secretly created their own tokens and hardcoded them into the front-end code, causing users to only see those tokens at launch, while other creators' tokens were completely invisible. The team detected the anomaly within two hours, promptly fired the involved developers, and removed the malicious code.

The official statement emphasized that the team never agreed to issue tokens for the vladfun platform, and the two acted on their own to launch it for "viewership". After negotiations, they returned about $15,000 in creator fees and test token earnings, recovering approximately 7.8 ETH in total, which has been deposited into a secure wallet for the team. Additionally, about 4.16 ETH in protocol fees generated from the platform's launch is stored in the team's multi-signature address.

Public information indicates that vladfun was rapidly built by a small team of five within 48 hours. Currently, two members associated with the project have issued statements, and as of the publication date, the specific identities of the two external developers have not been disclosed. According to a thread posted by the project's official account on July 18, the two external developers were responsible for providing the core codebase for the launchpad. In the last code submission before the platform's launch, they manually added a hardcoded line in the front-end to force the display of their own token on the homepage, while the tokens of other creators were completely obscured due to loading issues.

After the launch, users quickly noticed the anomaly; the entire platform only displayed one token. Team members began reviewing the code and discovered the manually added hardcoded line in the submission history. When questioned by the team, the two developers initially shrugged off the issues citing technical reasons like RPC failures, environment variables, and caching problems, but the fact that their token remained visible contradicted these explanations clearly.

According to the official introduction, one of the developers later requested to disable branch protection in the code repository, claiming the need to "rollback some things". The team performed a timestamp backup of the entire repository before removing the protection and observed that the two had deleted the line of code containing the hardcoded reference. The official statement pointed out that this attempt to destroy evidence ultimately exposed their intent. In the face of evidence, the two developers admitted to their actions.

This incident highlights the trust risks faced by rapidly built crypto projects when incorporating external developers. The identities of the two involved developers have yet to be made public, with the team stating that it has taken the advice to refrain from disclosing them. The vladfun team stated that in the future, no external parties will be allowed to access sensitive systems and will prefer to develop based on open-source contracts.

According to the official website, vladfun is currently in a suspended operational state, and the team stated it will prioritize addressing the concerns of affected users.

Community member Will Mexi publicly clarified his role after the incident. He claimed responsibility for tasks such as project application for list inclusion, front-end optimization, design, branding, and animation, and he is not one of the two developers involved, nor did he participate in planning or executing the operation. According to him, about 20 minutes before the launch, he tested the normal version of the website and therefore did not notice any anomalies.

Will Mexi stated that after the platform officially launched, he saw that the token had appeared in a nonsensical manner, prompting him to read the newly submitted code where he found the hardcoded line, which he immediately reported to the core team. He also mentioned that the prior enabling of branch protection was due to caution regarding external code, maintaining a complete submission history and evidence of intent. He denied purchasing any platform tokens and stated he suffered losses due to expensive RPC, API, and server deployment fees.

Core team member @SOLsesame also expressed support in the incident thread. He belongs to the core small team that has worked with Will Mexi and others for over a year and is not one of the external developers involved. His past experience indicates that he is an active builder in the Solana ecosystem and has been deeply involved in the ai16z ecosystem and its PartnersNFT and PartnersDAO projects, recently collaborating with Will Mexi to build and launch the Black Bull NFT series for the ANSEM community from scratch within 24 hours.

As a token launch platform on Robinhood Chain, vladfun differs from traditional bonding curve launchpads; its design goal is to complete token deployment in one transaction and directly launch to Uniswap V3 or V4, allowing instant trading on decentralized exchanges without the need for a "graduation" migration step. The liquidity pool location is permanently locked through a locker contract, preventing withdrawal by the team, inherently reducing the risk of rug pulls.

In terms of fairness design, the platform adopts a mechanism of fixed supply, no presale, and no large allocations to the team, while providing an optional developer priority buy-in feature that allows developers to purchase at zero transaction fees at launch. The anti-whale mechanism limits the maximum holding per wallet to 2%, preventing concentration in a single address. Regarding fee routing, the platform supports setting transaction fees from 1% to 5%, which can flow immediately to designated recipients, including wallet addresses, social accounts, or buyback-burning agents. Fees are locked and unchangeable at launch. Additionally, the platform plans for optional modes like staking dividends.

Despite the internal incident prompting a pause for vladfun, the launchpad ecosystem on Robinhood Chain has not cooled down. According to DefiLlama data, the chain currently has a TVL of approximately $258 million, with 24-hour transaction fees of about $118,000, generating approximately $106,000 in income, of which Uniswap's 24-hour fees reached $1.95 million. Currently, the ecosystem gathers multiple launchpads, each forming a differentiated competitive landscape: the rising star PONS is occupying the leading launchpad position thanks to intensive development and continuous updates, with a platform token market value of approximately $12 million and an increase of over 4200% in the past seven days. Additionally, the Butterfly platform focuses on meme-type coin stocks but has yet to create a breakout product; the innovative mechanism tokens native to Uniswap, like the RWA dividend-type token index, temporarily surged to a market value of $30 million on July 17 due to gaining official attention.