A Redditor regarded the developer’s excuse of gambling addiction as a peculiar method of “rug pulling,” noting that project developers typically vanish, erasing all evidence behind them.

A Reddit thread reported that a developer issued an atypical parting message, expressing regret and attributing his internet gambling issues to his actions that devastated a project, reducing its valuation from $2 million to $20,000 in mere moments.

Multiple investors from the Encryption AI project claim that its developer executed a rug pull in the midst of a liquidity transfer event. Consequently, the project’s token, 0XENCRYPT, saw a dramatic plummet from roughly $2.05 to a record low of $0.02. The substantial price tumble was noted by token data collector CoinGecko around July 2.

In contrast with other rug pulls, the developer opted to leave an apology letter to the project’s community. He attributed his actions to his gambling obsession before vanishing and eradicating all social media channels related to the project.

Screenshots of the developer’s message were circulated by numerous investors on social media platforms. In his post, the developer outlined his battle with gambling and shared that he had lost $300,000 in online casinos. Despite his inability to pledge a resolution or a project relaunch, he committed to striving to become a better individual.

The rug pull was met with anger from community members. Some wished for karmic justice on the developer, while others depicted the incident as an unwelcome birthday surprise and an unusual conclusion to a rug pull.

Crypto trader Daddi expressed his disappointment, noting that the rug pull occurred on his birthday. He claimed a loss of about $30,000 as a result of trusting the developers and investing in the project. On Reddit, one member remarked that the developer’s act of leaving a lengthy note was an odd approach to a rug pull, given that developers usually disappear without leaving any traces behind after executing such maneuvers.

In related news, Binance’s top security officer, Jimmy Su, recently discussed with Cointelegraph about how malevolent actors on the darknet are striving to rob crypto users. Su noted that hackers have a well-organized network of information collectors, data refiners, hackers, and money launderers.