A Solana meme coin creator set himself on fire as a dare, and was hospitalized with third-degree burns in an effort to promote his project. But now he’s done with it.

Mikol, the DARE coin’s creator, told Decrypt last week the only regret he has is not cashing out when he had the opportunity, back when the coin was charting blazing-hot gains.

Truth or Dare (DARE) is a meme coin project led by Mikol, who performed livestreamed stunts to help pump his token. After six days of performing goofy antics, the meme coin dev went too far by dousing himself in isopropyl alcohol and having friends shoot fireworks at him. Quickly, he went up in flames and was rushed to hospital with third-degree burns across 30% of his body.

Now, after five months of healing, Mikol is calling it quits. 

“I’m not [the] DARE dev anymore. My name is Mikol and I’m human. I just wanna make it out [of] the trenches like you,” he posted on Twitter. “I just wanna be consistent with God and be a positive human being with an outgoing personality that puts smiles on people’s faces.”

Since the fiery incident, only two team members remain in contact with the injured dev; the rest “took their money and left,” Mikol told Decrypt. One of those people, Mikol said, is the unidentified person that came up with the idea to set him ablaze—someone who was a close friend and did not apologize for the dare. 

“I have learned from it. It’s made me become less trustworthy and more aware of every little thing,” Mikol told Decrypt. “Everybody in this space wants money; everything else is after.”

Mikol had lofty plans of building a Truth or Dare app and climbing Mount Everest, but claims these plans fell apart alongside the team crumbling.

“The time that DARE was most popular and running at its highest was when I was in the hospital and wasn’t in full control. I was healing, I was going through surgery,” Mikol told Decrypt. “Honestly, I didn’t benefit from DARE—not money-wise. I mean, I gained a little popularity, but that’s temporary.”

Throughout the process, Mikol has maintained that he doesn’t regret what happened. Instead, Mikol is mostly peeved that he didn’t make any money from DARE—aside from $3,000 donated to him by the community to pay hospital bills.

Mikol told Decrypt his biggest regret was not cashing out after seeing $200,000 in his wallet. 

DARE skyrocketed 4,500% to a market cap of $1.82 million over the 10 hours that followed the stunt. The value of the token fell as Mikol spent weeks in hospital recovering, unable to do much. But as he was set to leave the hospital, the project again spiked 1,735% to a market cap of $2.91 million. The burned-up dev claims to have never sold.

After coming home, Mikol attempted a number of small-time pranks, such as the cinnamon challenge, but the project never again reached those peaks. It fell 94% over the following week and ultimately fizzled out, with a current market cap of just $26,000 as of this writing.

Mikol still believes the Truth or Dare project could work in the future, despite the hardship. He’s just not willing to commit himself to it for the foreseeable future.

Going forward, the Miami resident plans to become a “trench warrior” and work on growing his social media presence. DARE was always built around Mikol as a personality, and he wants to continue being himself online and grow his audience through that approach—without the potentially painful stunts.

Mikol’s fireworks-fueled tragedy came amid an exploding trend of meme coin devs livestreaming increasingly controversial shenanigans in attempts to pump their tokens. It all started when a mom shook her breats on camera to help raise the price of her alleged son’s token, while another incident saw a dev lose a tooth from boxing on camera.

But Mikol’s stunt took the trend to a new level that arguably was never matched.

More recently, the gonzo meme coin livestreaming meta was revived by a 19-year-old who streams drug binges with his stripper girlfriend—even faking his death at one point. Now, barely over a month into his meme coin career, that developer has pivoted into racist content.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

Cyber security firm CertiK revealed Tuesday that despite declining hacks across the crypto sector in the previous quarter, the total value thieves made off with soared.

In its latest Web3 security report, CertiK said hackers managed to siphon away $750 million across 155 incidents, bringing the year’s total losses to nearly $2 billion.

It marks an approximate 9.5% increase in the value lost despite 27 fewer incidents compared to the previous quarter.

The report identifies phishing and private key compromises as the most prevalent attack vectors, accounting for $668 million in losses. Phishing alone caused $343 million in damages across 65 incidents. 

A standout case involved a Bitcoin whale who suffered a $238 million loss in August, making it the single most significant phishing attack for Q3. The attack compromised the whale’s wallet, and although some funds were recovered by the community, most of the stolen amount remains unaccounted for.

Private key compromises were responsible for approximately $317 million in losses across just 10 incidents. The most notable private key attack was on WazirX, one of India’s leading crypto exchanges. 

In July, hackers exploited WazirX’s private key vulnerabilities, leading to the theft of $231 million across more than 200 cryptocurrencies, including Shiba Inu (SHIB), Ethereum (ETH), and Polygon (MATIC), making it one of the most major breaches in Q3.

A target on Ethereum’s back

Ethereum continues to be the prime target for attacks, with $387.8 million stolen across 86 incidents, far surpassing any other blockchain, the cyber security firm found.

Multichain hacks were also prominent, with $89.8 million stolen across several networks, revealing the potential risks associated with cross-chain functionality.

While phishing and private key compromises led the quarter in terms of value lost, other notable attack methods included code vulnerabilities and reentrancy exploits. 

Code vulnerabilities resulted in $39.6 million in losses over 44 incidents, while reentrancy attacks—which allow hackers to repeatedly withdraw funds before the system can update balances—accounted for $30.3 million in losses across five incidents.

The Q3 CertiK report reveals only 4.1% of stolen funds were recovered this quarter, a sharp decline from the 14.4% recovered in Q2. Despite fewer incidents, the average loss per hack reached $5.93 million, with the median loss at $120,529.

Immunefi, a bug bounty and security services platform, noted a major drop in crypto-related losses in August., as previously reported by Decrypt.

The report revealed total losses amounted to just $15 million across five incidents, marking the lowest monthly total year-to-date and a 94.5% decrease from July’s figures.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair

Blockchain-based predictions platform Polymarket is seeking an additional $50 million in new capital amid potential plans to launch a token, The Information reported Monday.

Investors in the round will be issued token warrants, giving them the right to purchase tokens if Polymarket decides to launch them in the future, the outlet reported, citing anonymous sources.

It’s unclear whether the tokens will provide additional utility within the platform. Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan did not immediately return a request for comment.

It follows the platform’s $70 million raise over two rounds this year, where it picked up $25 million in a Series A led by General Catalyst and an additional $45 million in Series B funding with participation from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

Polymarket has been riding high on U.S. election fervor this year, capturing nearly $1 billion in trade volume from those taking a punt on who will become the country’s 47th president.

Built atop the Ethereum and Polygon blockchain networks, Polymarket allows participants to buy and sell shares in different possible outcomes of real-world events. The price of one “share” in a prediction market ranges from $0.00 to $1, and its price correlates to its percentage chance of winning, or its “odds.”

While speculation on who will take the White House in November has helped fuel the platform’s recent surge in popularity, Polymarket also allows betting on pop culture, sporting, and other political events.

And traders are taking outsized bets this year, with total trading volume reaching its highest point on the platform last month, topping out at $472.8 million, according to one Dune dashboard.

Its popularity has led those within the Polymarket community to opine in recent weeks on the possibility of a token to help fund operations, as the platform does not currently charge users fees.

Traders have started altering their behavior in response to the speculation, attempting to artificially boost their trading volume in hopes of securing a larger airdrop reward, according to whales, or large traders, monitoring the activity, Decrypt previously reported.