Highlights
- Security firm GoPlus says the group behind the GOLD token rug pull has profited more than $8.2 million.
- The team controls the domain realtrumpcoins[.]com and the X account @realtrumpcoins1, and pushed GOLD to a $60 million market cap before dumping.
- GoPlus has identified a second malicious token, PLATINUM, whose contract can drain any holder’s full balance at any time.
- Launch funds for the operation trace back to KuCoin, with 15 additional manipulation addresses funded via Binance.
Web3 security firm GoPlus warned on August 29 that the group behind the GOLD token rug pull has profited more than $8.2 million, and that the same operators have already deployed a follow-up scam token, PLATINUM, built with a backdoor capable of draining any holder’s entire balance on command. According to GoPlus’s security alert, the group controls the domain realtrumpcoins[.]com and the X account @realtrumpcoins1, which it used to market GOLD as a Trump-branded token before pulling the rug.
How the GOLD Rug Pull Played Out
GoPlus’s investigation traces the operation’s funding directly: the developer wallet that launched GOLD drew its initial capital from KuCoin, while a separate cluster of 15 addresses used to manipulate the token’s trading activity were funded through Binance. Using that infrastructure, the team pushed GOLD’s market capitalization to roughly $60 million before dumping their holdings and collapsing the price — a classic pump-and-dump sequence, but one GoPlus says was unusually well-resourced and coordinated across more than a dozen wallets working in concert rather than a single insider wallet acting alone.
A Second Token Already Live
Rather than stopping at one exit, GoPlus says the same group has already deployed PLATINUM, a new token whose smart contract contains malicious code letting the deployer seize any holder’s complete balance at will — functionality closer to a wallet-draining honeypot than a standard rug pull. GoPlus’s explicit guidance to the market: do not buy PLATINUM under any circumstances, since the mechanism to drain funds is embedded in the contract itself rather than depending on a future dump.
Related: GOLD Team Wallets Dump 224M Tokens as Traders Nurse 90% Losses
Why Trump-Branded Scam Tokens Keep Recurring
The GOLD-to-PLATINUM pipeline fits a pattern that has repeated through 2026: operators recycling political branding — Trump-affiliated names and imagery in particular — to manufacture instant social proof and hype for tokens with no underlying product. That branding lowers the bar for retail buyers to trust a listing at a glance, and the same GOLD team’s wallets were already flagged for dumping hundreds of millions of tokens on earlier holders before this latest disclosure, underscoring that a single rug rarely marks the end of an operation’s activity — it is frequently a template the same wallets and infrastructure get reused for the next token.
What to Watch Next
GoPlus and other on-chain monitors are likely to keep tracking the KuCoin- and Binance-funded address cluster tied to this group for further token deployments, since the infrastructure behind GOLD and PLATINUM appears reusable rather than one-off. Traders should treat any new token sharing wallet lineage, branding, or promotional accounts with GOLD or PLATINUM as high-risk by default, and run contract security checks before interacting with unfamiliar new listings tied to political branding.
FAQ
How much did the GOLD scam team profit?
GoPlus estimates the group behind the GOLD token rug pull has profited more than $8.2 million.
What is PLATINUM and why is it dangerous?
PLATINUM is a new token from the same operators, with a contract that contains malicious code allowing the deployer to drain any holder’s entire balance at any time.
Where did the scam funding come from?
GoPlus traced the developer’s launch capital to KuCoin, while 15 additional wallets used to manipulate GOLD’s trading were funded through Binance.
How high did GOLD’s market cap reach before the dump?
The token’s market capitalization was pushed to roughly $60 million before the team sold off its holdings and the price collapsed.
