IBX (ARTIC) accused of ‘rugging’ investors after raising 160K SOL ($24M) in presale

IBX (ARTIC) was a high-profile presale from October 15 that ended up as a money grab of user funds. IBX also launched and crashed the token even before the community distribution. 

IBX (ARTIC) was a newly launched project that aimed to raise $3.2M in SOL. The presale event started on October 15 and ended up raising 160K SOL, valued at $24M. Initially, IBX promised it would return any SOL that exceeded its fundraising goals as the project will only give tokens to a small circle of selected wallets.

IBX over-promised and under-delivered 

IBX chose the presale format to grant itself more legitimacy at a time when meme tokens once again launch irrationally and rely on organic hype and price discovery. Unfortunately for investors, even that did not mean it was more reliable than simple memes with no utility.

The team did not return the extra funds to the buyers, and instead increased its presale cap, claiming it made the decision because of a community vote. IBX claimed an on-chain, valid vote determined that ARTIC would launch with a $50M market cap. 

The voting site later turned inaccessible and bears no record of the actual vote. IBX also claimed the votes were on-chain, but they were nowhere to be seen on Solana.

The team has now added bots to the chat claiming they received either tokens or a refund, though the community still sees the project as a rug pull. The decision to go with a higher market cap raised many red flags about the project’s legitimacy, as it was in fact a SOL grab after the unexpected windfall.

The IBX team responded quickly to clear allegations that it performed an unintended rug pull, even though it has not offered a clear resolution yet. The team claimed its IBX token was a fair launch, though it erased a large part of its value soon after the launch, while the community could not yet trade.

We are aware of the current community dissatisfaction and are doing our best to resolve it. We are doing everything we can to fix the situation and will share next steps ASAP

Orderly has nothing to do with the meme launch, was 100% executed by IBX and Artic team

— IBX (@IBXtrade) October 18, 2024

Even though Orderly retweeted the link to the presale, the IBX project has a limited relationship with Orderly Network. Orderly Network did not incubate IBX. It merely granted its SDK to launch a new perpetual DEX.

Notably, Orderly Network has advertised IBX as one of the exchanges eligible for its airdrop rewards.

ARTIC down 97% after the team sells

Presale backers are clamoring for a full refund. Initially, IBX was supposed to refund $21.8M after raising sufficient capital for its needs. However, it refunded only $9.7M, retaining the rest after a vote on its website. The community also pointed out the vote was probably controlled.

Additionally, none of the commenters received back their SOL, which may have gone to newly created addresses controlled by the team. 

The actual fundraising was closer to a financing round for a utility project, but IBX aimed to launch ARTIC as a meme token with deep liquidity. Unfortunately, soon after the launch, the team crashed ARTIC’s $50M market capitalization to around $6M. The token claims page went live only after the asset had crashed on the Raydium DEX.

In the early stage, ARTIC also gained listings on MEXC and LBank. 

Once investors finally claimed their tokens, the market extended the drop, practically erasing the value of ARTIC down to $0.0016, from a peak at $0.06. The ARTIC pool also has just under $500K in liquidity, not even up to the level of an obscure meme token. 

Initially, the presale backers were supposed to either get ARTIC or their SOL back. Despite attempts to salvage the project, ARTIC is now down more than 97% and the community is calling for law enforcement to get involved. 

While the team has not disappeared, the loss of value is very close to a rug pull. It is uncertain who controls the 160K SOL at the moment, as some were distributed to newly-created addresses. The IBX team sent out the activity where SOL was sent to a long list of wallets, but multiple presale participants said they did not get their SOL back. Some of the backers also did not receive any ARTIC tokens.

The community now calls for the IBX team to scrape together all the SOL in its control, and send it back to the true wallets of the presale backers. There have also been calls for on-chain investigator ZachXBT to track down the funds and pressure the team for the promised reimbursements.