Quick take:
- Vanessa Sierra launched the SmolBoyzLand NFT project in March, which raised 127 ETH.
- There is proof on the blockchain that the project founders transferred the mint funds to their own wallets.
- Sierra has not answered questions about where the funds really are and flew to Qatar to watch her country compete in the World Cup.
Over the weekend, Crypto Twitter had their eyes on OnlyFans model and former Love Island star Vanessa Sierra as she became the latest subject of a rugpull controversy. Sierra is the co-founder of the SmolBoyzLand NFT project along with itsreagan.eth.
SmolBoyzLand is a collection of 9,999 NFTs with tennis-based characters, perhaps inspired by Sierra’s Australian tennis player ex-boyfriend, Bernard Tomic. Launched on Mar 7, SmolBoyzLand raised 127 ETH. Sierra claimed in an interview with news.com.au that the project launched organically via a Telegram group with less than 4000 subscribers before it took off on Discord, where the project’s server attracted 10,000 members.
Some of the tweets on the SmolBoyzLand Twitter account claimed that the project is a “metaverse DAO focused on strategically acquiring blue-chip NFTS” and that it plans “to buy up all of the land in the metaverse”. Currently, the Twitter account no longer exists.
On Dec 8, on-chain analyst OKHotShot published an analysis of how Sierra rugged the SmolBoyzLand project.
The project’s launch and founders washtrading
SmolBoyzLand’s whitepaper made a preposterous claim that “it’s clear statistically and experientially that prices will trend upwards,” making it a reason for people to invest in the project.
OKHotShot found that funds were being moved after the project’s mint on Mar 7. After the mint, 18 ETH were sent to two wallets using the project’s multi-sig wallet, a crypto wallet that requires multiple signatures to execute a transaction. Of the 18 ETH, 10 ETH were sent to an alternate wallet which was used to buy 28 SmolBoyz NFT across six wallets to pump the floor price of the project. The remaining 8 ETH were cashed out using Binance.
According to OKHotShot, the multi-sig wallet’s signers are Vanessa Sierra, itsreagan.eth and the creation wallet (funded by itsreagan.eth), who are in full control of the wallet.
Where the funds went
Transaction records on the blockchain show that the 127 ETH were split between the founders and cashed out from March to May. By May 7, Vanessa Sierra and itsreagan.eth had allegedly taken about 120 ETH of the 127 ETH raised. Despite concerns surrounding the use of mint funds, Sierra told SmolBoyzLand buyers on Jul 22 that “absolutely none of the funding has been taken by founders.”
Citing the market downturn for the project’s failure, Sierra held a DAO vote on Jul 27 giving the community options to either use all the funds for trading or let it stay in the multi-sig. The DAO voted for using the funds for trading. OKHotShot also discovered that Sierra had been promoting memecoins like Floki, Shiba and DogeT on Telegram.
As the funds were transferred out of the multi-sig wallet months before the DAO vote, the results vote did not matter. OKHotShot believes that the funds weren’t used for trading and the vote was done in case Sierra and itsreagan.eth needed a cover-up “for not returning the funds because they could simply claim they lost it all “trading”.”
Vanessa Sierra’s activities
Sierra’s wallet history also shows that she placed DAI offers for Bored Ape NFTs, hoping that a seller would mistake it for an ETH bid and accept the offer. OKHotShot said that this is a common practice used by phishers.
Over the weekend, Sierra quietly took down the SmolBoyzLand website and deleted the project’s Twitter and Instagram accounts. Amidst the fiasco, she also tweeted that she booked a flight to Qatar to watch her country, France, play in the World Cup.
On Dec 12, she tweeted that the Discord for holders of the project is still active and that she has been “been working with community for solutions since Oct.” She also claimed that the funds sent to the founders’ doxxed wallet post-mint of the project were for expenses and that she hasn’t made any profit.
I have not made a single bit of profit off this. If anyone used common sense they’d be able to work out the difference between expenses sent to completely doxxed wallets before changed to fiat, and “embezzling” . The wallets the funds went to were under founders .eth names
— Vanessa Sierra (@vanessasierra00) December 12, 2022
Twitter user “ravonus.eth” tweeted in response: “400k should AT least be an entire year if not more.. The problem is these founders out-paying themselves 50% of the mint. Good founders don’t drain their liquid before they’ve created something. In the end you believe you deserve 50% of the project because you made it go to 0?”
Sierra did not deny paying herself and co-founder reagan.eth from the mint funds and writing it off as “expenses”, and only replied: “Project isn’t at zero. For the record.”
Maybe her joke video about NFT founders taking all the funds and writing it off as “expenses” wasn’t a joke but a prediction .. pic.twitter.com/eYESk7aeKE
— OKHotshot (@NFTherder) December 8, 2022
NFTgators reached out to Sierra for comment, but did not receive a response.
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