FOMO denies its iOS update drained user wallets; the accuser has a history

The claim landed on X on 23 August: an update to FOMO's iOS app had "accidentally added something malicious" in its code, and users were watching funds leave their wallets while the app still showed a balance. The account making it, Derivatives_Ape, put total damage at $6 million, limited to iOS, and cited one example — a "friend" who lost 662 SOL, worth roughly $62,000. Protos, which examined the claim on 24 August, reports that no breakdown, victim list or methodology accompanied the $6 million figure.

FOMO co-founder Prashan Dharmasena rejected it outright. "It's crazy that people can just come on this app and blatantly lie," he said, per Protos, arguing that the wallet named in the complaint has no transaction signed by FOMO's fee payer. Protos notes he repeated that defense to at least two other accusers and framed the episode as "paid fud."

The one hard artifact holds up. Protos verified that the screenshot in the original post is authentic from Solscan, and that 662 SOL did move out of the cited wallet — 14 minutes before the accusation was posted. What Protos could not establish is what caused the movement, or whether it was unauthorized at all.

The accuser's identity complicates things further. Forensic researcher ZachXBT identifies Derivatives_Ape, a Solana trading commentary account, as a co-founder of Zkasino, the project he says "stole $30 million of investor funds." ZachXBT named the account as Zkasino co-founder Elham Nourzai, though Protos reports the handle appeared to be controlled by another Zkasino co-founder, Ildar Elham.

Key facts

• Alleged total loss: $6 million, iOS only — unverified, no breakdown provided (Derivatives_Ape via Protos).
• Single cited case: 662 SOL, about $62,000; the transfer is real and visible on Solscan, timed 14 minutes before the post (Protos verification).
• FOMO's denial rests on its fee payer never signing for that wallet (Dharmasena via Protos).
• Funding: $17M Series A led by Benchmark, September 2025, with Chetan Puttagunta taking a board seat; $75M Series B led by Index Ventures at a $550 million valuation, Union Square Ventures participating. Balaji Srinivasan and Solana co-founder Raj Gokal are investors (Protos).
• The iOS app remained live in Apple's App Store as of Protos' publication.

The real-world read

Both sides have obvious reasons to say what they're saying, and neither has produced proof. Dharmasena's denial is narrower than it sounds: "no transaction signed by FOMO's fee payer" is not the same as "this wallet never touched FOMO," a distinction Protos flags directly. FOMO's security documentation says the company "cannot access, move, or freeze your funds" — a self-custodial design that would make a server-side drain hard, but that is FOMO's own description of FOMO, not an audit.

On the other side, a $6 million figure with no victims, no wallets and no method is not evidence, and it comes from an account ZachXBT ties to a $30 million rug pull. An anonymous third party defending FOMO claimed competitors were paying for the posts — also unevidenced.

Two things worth noting: nobody has published an on-chain trace showing a common exploit path across multiple wallets, which is what would settle this. And the funding totals don't quite reconcile — $17M plus $75M is $92M, against the "roughly $94 million" Protos cites, suggesting undisclosed earlier rounds.

Opinion, and whose

ZachXBT's attribution of Derivatives_Ape to Zkasino is his research, not an adjudicated finding. Dharmasena's "paid fud" characterization is an allegation of coordinated disinformation, offered without named actors or evidence. Protos' own read — that FOMO's incentive to deny is obvious given roughly $94 million raised — is the outlet's inference.

Sources

• Protos (Tier 2, reputable secondary), 24 August 2026: the sole account here — the allegation, Dharmasena's quoted denials, independent verification of the Solscan screenshot and the 662 SOL transfer timing, ZachXBT's attribution of the accuser, and FOMO's funding history. Protos cites ZachXBT for the Zkasino link and Dharmasena directly for the denials. No sponsored or commissioned material was used; display advertising on Protos' page is unrelated to the article's content.

Not financial advice.