Crypto gambling platform ZKasino is again in the spotlight after returning to the community to announce the refund to affected users. The now-disgraced platform was in the news over a month ago after allegedly stealing $33 million from investors.
ZKasino Returns To Refund Investors
On Tuesday, ZKasino announced a 72-hour refund window for affected investors to reclaim their ‘rugged’ funds. In the announcement, the crypto platform’s founder, Derivatives Ape, revealed that Bridgers had until Friday, May 31, at 14:00 UTC to sign up and claim their funds.
According to the post, investors who chose not to participate in the ZKAS conversion can start the two-step process to bridge back their Ether (ETH). Bridgers must deposit the first batch of ZKAS bridge rewards they received into a smart contract controlled by ZKasino to sign up.
Moreover, investors forfeit “the remaining 14 months of ZKAS release” by signing up. After the May 31 deadline, the ability to sign up for the Bridge back process will close, and ZKAS deposits will be halted.
Following the sign-up and the data-gathering windows, the claim portal will be opened after the data verification. As a result, Bridgers can claim their ETH at a 1:1 ratio from a new, audited bridge contract on Ethereum Mainnet.
Crypto Community Tired Of The Project
The announcement was negatively received, as the founder’s X account was used to share the news instead of the project’s official channels. It’s worth noting that ZKasino’s official X account went silent at the end of April as the rug-pull allegations gained force.
As a result, community members highlighted the platform’s now-tarnished reputation and its founder. Many investors feared the refund process was another scam, doubting the links’ legitimacy, while others asked the crypto project to send their ETH back.
One user stated, “I don’t trust this… maybe you have a plan to drain our wallet… just send our ETH back.” Another other investor wondered, “Is it safe? Any devs has checked the code?”
Seemingly, many users who tried the process couldn’t connect their wallets or had problems signing up, which also sparked doubts. Moreover, several replies questioned the reason behind the short timeframe for the refunds since it took over a month to start the process.
As reported by Bitcoinist, Dutch authorities detained a 26-year-old man in an investigation into the alleged rug-pull scam from ZKasino. After days of uncertainty, investors confirmed their suspicions when the crypto project started to show serious concerning activity.
The bridge became inaccessible due to “maintenance” and was down for several days before being live “again.” However, after April 24, the platform’s X account stopped posting.
Since then, only its founder, believed to be the man arrested by Dutch authorities, has updated investors. In a post from May 9, he stated that Binance and the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service of the Netherlands (FIOD) were spreading “misinformation” about the project.
Moreover, Derivatives Ape claimed that the gambling platform did not commit a “so-called ‘exit scam’ or ‘rug pull’” and assured users that the project’s ETH was “safe and secured by them in the ZKasino multisig wallet.
Nonetheless, ZKasino’s founder seemingly has a shady record of failed crypto projects and concerning practices, including his involvement with rivaling crypto exchange ZigZag and DeFi protocol Syncus.
Ultimately, the project seems to have lost all credibility among the crypto community as many consider it “up there with the absolute worst we have to offer.”
