Discovering NFT Rug Pulls: Matching Behavior Patterns Using Graph Isomorphism Networks

Abstract

Amid the surge of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) in blockchain, this study introduces a meticulous methodology focusing on transaction behaviors to unveil rug pulls — a critical issue impacting financial security and trust in the NFT landscape. Using a Graph Isomorphism Network (GIN) model with 6 behavioral patterns obtained from transaction sequences, we create a “Rug Pull Pattern Matcher” model. We provide a comprehensive analysis by applying the model on two datasets — creator’s transactions from 50 reputable NFT projects and 32 reported rug pulls. Our work utilizes automated labeling to categorize addresses and our analysis reveals several interconnected NFT creator activities. We present an in-depth mapping of fund flows and creator interactions exposing suspicious behaviors like artificial inflation and intricate network collaborations among creators. The results of our proposed model demonstrate the efficacy of our methodology with 75.4% accuracy and 85.9% precision on the dataset of reported rug pulls. This work provides comparative analyses of genuine and malicious creator networks to elucidate their structural differences, helping to identify genuine and potentially fraudulent NFT activities.