Lena Network denies Rug Pull, giving up token contract ownership does not mean the end of the project

In response to yesterday's Rug Pull rumors, liquidity protocol Lena Network issued a statement clarifying: "We send fundraising funds to OKX for multiple reasons, including converting IFO's ETH to USDT. This is a necessary step because of LENA's operations and The Automated Market Maker (AMM) pool operates based on USDT. We chose this method instead of on-chain transfers to avoid high gas fees and transaction slippage, ensuring efficient use of funds and effective finance Management. These funds are mainly used for the future development of the project, including development costs, marketing, currency listing fees and liquidity. Based on feedback from the community, we take further steps to transfer the funds back to the cold wallet to protect the security of the funds. In addition, We would like to clarify that after closing the private sale round, we transferred 100 ETH to OKX and did not expect such a strong response from the community that followed." Regarding the controversy caused by giving up ownership of the token contract, Lena said: “Based on feedback from the community, we originally planned to give up ownership of the token contract to prevent any new minting and to assure the community of our commitment to decentralization and security. Commitment. However, we are reminded that ownership of the contract has not been completely relinquished and this is an action taken to further appease our community. Information has been spread inaccurately and we would like to clarify that relinquishing our token contract ownership does not mean our project is over." Lena also noted that its roadmap is on track, with important milestones including the launch of a permissionless NFT auction platform that provides customizable and minute-level auction capabilities for NFTs. Lena is also advancing the development of a lending protocol, which is already visible on the testnet. Lena recognized that its implementation errors were causing distress to the community and worked to implement a compensation plan for IFO participants. As previously reported by Cointelgraph, the Lena Network Deployer address transferred 753.11 ETH (worth approximately $2.9 million) to an address related to the OKX platform at 10:00 yesterday. According to previous announcements from the Lena Network protocol, the Candy token offering raised a total of over 850 ETH (valued at $3.2 million).