A statement from the Copper team regarding the AnubisDAO LBP on Copper

Copper is a permissionless LBP platform with a user interface that acts as a window into the Ethereum network. The platform enables projects and users to more easily interact with and view Balancer Protocol smart contracts and the data associated with them.

On Friday the 29th of October 2021 AnubisDAO created an LBP using Copper. The LBP was configured to last 24 hours but before it finished the token liquidity was pulled by the creator from the LBP smart contract that housed the funds. The creator’s Ethereum address was left holding $60m of ETH that had been pooled, while LBP participants were left with ANKH tokens and no liquid market for them.

Neither the Copper platform nor Balancer’s smart contracts have been breached or compromised.

The AnubisDAO Twitter account has not made any statements since this event, but other accounts on Twitter that are known to be AnubisDAO affiliates claim that the LBP creator’s wallet account was either compromised or that they were a bad actor.

First of all, we want to say that we sympathize with the victims of this loss and hope that the parties involved in seizing the funds will be held responsible. It was tough to watch this play out in real-time and although we are building a permissionless platform we want to do so with minimal harm to users.

Similarly to other UIs for Defi projects on Ethereum, such as Uniswap, anyone from across the world can access Copper — anyone can create and/or participate in a LBP through the platform. Our technology is neutral, and Copper does not endorse or promote any project that utilizes the platform. This is why on LBP pages and throughout our website, you will see warnings encouraging users to do their own research when participating in LBPs.

We are working towards providing additional UI changes to further enhance the already existing warnings to users and to remove any ambiguity of implied project support for LBPs on Copper. Just because a LBP is live and has been created, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s worthy of an investment.

Yesterday, after the AnubisDAO incident, a new seemingly malicious project with the same exact token name, ticker symbol, supply, and description as AnubisDAO’s ANKH token was created on the Copper platform. Knowing this information, the Copper team was presented with the choice to either keep the new LBP up and risk our users being further harmed by it or take it down. Basically, either stay true to our permissionless ethos no matter the potential harm to our users, or break it and start curating LBPs. After a quick debate, we took a middle ground, and instead removed the LBP list altogether.

The removal of the list from our UI prevents new LBPs from being easily discoverable through Copper, but we hope that helps users avoid the mistake of investing into projects just because they think the project must have been vetted by someone if it shows up on the LBP list. The creation of new LBPs and participation within them will still be accessible through the Copper interface, but in order for a user to access an LBP they will need to have learned about it from a source external to Copper such as the team performing the launch or the Ethereum network itself.

In addition to this change, our team will also be exploring a new LBP discovery mechanism, where rather than Copper by default displaying all LBPs on the platform, users will only be able to choose to view lists curated by third parties that they deem trustworthy. This would be similar in nature to how platforms such as Uniswap utilize approved token lists from Coingecko and other entities. We hope that these future changes will provide greater protection to users interacting with Copper.

The decentralized nature of web3 has resulted in people from across the globe transacting with one another without the need for middlemen and gatekeepers, having a profound impact on the financial industry, and our lives. We believe this is for the better and that’s the reason why we’ve built Copper. We are resolute in our mission to provide open, fair, transparent access to projects for everyone, everywhere, without interference from middle-men or gatekeepers

Unfortunately, like in most industries, there will always be bad actors willing to harm others in order to enrich themselves. The decentralized Web3 is no different. The Copper team is committed to building user experiences that will empower the rise of novel projects, ideas, and communities, but we want to do this in a way that adds some safeguards and protections for our users, so we will keep developing new features emphasizing these elements. We would like to remind users participating in decentralized finance that decentralized platforms will always also carry an additional level of risk and responsibility. It is crucial to perform due diligence when considering participating in any web3 activity, and Copper LBPs are no different.

If you would like to learn more about how LBPs work and about Copper, please read our guide here.