Replication Data for: Short paper: DeFi Deception—Uncovering the prevalence of rugpulls in cryptocurrency projects

DeFi has attracted legitimate investors and scammers alike. The paper presents an empirical investigation into the prevalence of rugpulls, a scam where cryptocurrency project developers exit without fully delivering and leave investors in the wind. Using forum data, 101 rug- pulls from 6 different types of DeFi services are documented. ICOs form the majority of the rugpulls, most of which were active for less than six months before scamming out. ICOs rugpulled in 2021 were active for a much longer time than those that were rugpulled later on, perhaps pointing to new entrants intending to pull the rug. Through qualitative thematic analysis, we discover that these schemes primarily use authoritative and financial lures at the announcement stage of the project to mimic legitimate projects.去中心化金融（DeFi，Decentralized Finance）同时吸引了合规投资者与诈骗者。本论文针对“rugpull（加密货币项目开发者未兑现承诺便卷款跑路，令投资者血本无归的诈骗行为）”的发生率展开实证研究。本研究依托论坛数据，整理记录了来自6类不同去中心化金融服务场景下的101起跑路诈骗事件。首次代币发行（ICO，Initial Coin Offering）类跑路诈骗占比最高，其中多数在行骗得逞前仅运营不足6个月。2021年实施跑路诈骗的ICO项目，其运营时长显著长于后续实施诈骗的ICO项目，这或许暗示了意图实施跑路诈骗的新入局者的行为特征变化。通过定性主题分析，本研究发现：此类诈骗方案在项目公告阶段，主要借助权威性与财务性诱饵，仿冒合规项目以骗取投资者信任。