Article Rewritten:
On the evening of May 28th, decentralized betting platform ZKasino, which had previously attracted 10,515 ETH (approximately $33.2 million) through its bridge reward program, announced on the Medium platform that it would initiate the process of refunding ETH to bridge participants who choose not to participate in the ZKAS conversion. Bridge participants can register by depositing the first batch of ZKAS bridge rewards they received, and once registered, they will forfeit the remaining 14 months of ZKAS token release.
How can a good hand be ruined?
As a chain game infrastructure project, ZKasino completed its A-round financing in March this year with a valuation of $350 million, with investments from MEXC, Big Brain Holdings, Trading_axe, Pentoshi, Sisyphus, and others. Although the specific amount of financing was not disclosed, the community seems to have high expectations for this project in the future.
However, just a month later, Big Brain Holdings stated that it had never invested in ZKasino but was provided with proportionally allocated tokens. Big Brain Holdings did not receive them and will not choose to accept them. In mid-April, ZKasino announced that its bridge reward program had ended, with a total bridge fund of up to 10,515 ETH (approximately $33.2 million). However, the official announcement did not mention the specific time for withdrawals, and some users discovered that ZKasino had removed the “Ethereum will be refunded and can be bridged back” feature from the Bridge funds interface, preventing users from withdrawing.
In fact, rumors of fraud surrounding the ZKasino project have been circulating in the community. zkSync ecosystem DEX ZigZag published an article on the X platform stating that several people recently accused the ZKasino team of owing money or engaging in some form of fraud, and several former employees and contractors claimed that they had not received their wages. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also came forward to expose the scam, pointing out that ZKasino did not use any “ZK” (zero-knowledge proof) technology and was merely hosted on the zksync platform, with scammers exploiting the term “ZK.”
In early May, the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) in the Netherlands announced the arrest of a 26-year-old man on charges of fraud, embezzlement, and money laundering. The man was suspected of being involved in a large-scale scam by ZKasino, and global victims had invested over $30 million worth of cryptocurrencies on the platform. Dutch authorities seized cryptocurrencies, real estate, and luxury cars worth over €11.4 million ($12.2 million).
With the fraud coming to light, ZKasino seems to have no choice but to refund the community.
Promise to refund investor funds but still playing tricks?
On May 28th, ZKasino announced the launch of a two-step bridging process, which would return ETH to bridge participants who chose not to participate in the ZKAS conversion at a 1:1 ratio. The team also assured that they are still working hard and promised to continue to make every effort to ensure the success of the project. However, after this announcement, there are still many doubts in the community, as people have discovered some “tricks” in ZKasino’s two-step bridging process:
First, ZKasino only allows bridge participants to register for a short 72-hour period (from May 28th, 14:00 UTC to May 31st, 14:00 UTC, all on working days). After 3 days, registration will be closed, and deposits will also be stopped. This short period of time may prevent many people from withdrawing their deposits. It is important to note that users must register using the original ETH bridge deposit address where they received the ZKAS bridge reward, then find their ZKAS on the ZKasino EVM chain and deposit the ZKAS back into the smart contract controlled by ZKasino.
Second, ZKasino seems to deliberately avoid the staking rewards obtained from user deposits. On-chain records show that after the Bridge-to-Earn program ends, ZKasino will convert investors’ ETH into Lido’s Wrapped Staked Ether. Considering that the current Lido staking yield is 3.3% and the recent rise in ETH prices, the expected staking rewards will exceed $100,000. Some community members question why the platform requires them to go through another process instead of directly returning the ETH.
More importantly, whether intentionally or not, ZKasino has once again avoided a key element: time. In the announcement, ZKasino stated that after registration ends, they will collect registration data in the next few days (without specifying a specific time range) and will soon release a new announcement containing the data of which addresses can claim the refund ETH for public verification (without specifying a specific time range). ZKasino claims that after data verification, they will open a claim portal, and bridge participants will be able to claim their ETH at a 1:1 ratio from the new audited bridging contract on the Ethereum mainnet. Once again, no specific time is provided.
In short, although ZKasino insists that it operates legally, legal issues, investor suspicions, and the recent refund announcement have left many questions unanswered. As the 72-hour deadline approaches, the crypto community is closely watching whether ZKasino will truly fulfill its promise or if further complications will arise.
