A crypto trader claimed yesterday an update for the FOMO app caused $6 million in crypto losses.
In a social media post, they cited an example of someone allegedly losing 662 SOL, worth about $62,000, after opening the iOS app called FOMO.
FOMO co-founder Prashan Dharmasena rejected the claim, countering, “It’s crazy that people can just come on this app and blatantly lie,” adding that the account in question has no transaction signed by FOMO’s fee payer.
Sticking to his story, Dharmasena repeated his defense to at least two other accusers.
The source of the original accusation is Derivatives_Ape, an X account built around Solana trading commentary, but that account isn’t the alleged victim. Instead, the post claims a “friend” suffered the loss.
According to forensic researcher ZachXBT, Derivatives_Ape, is a co-founder of Zkasino who “stole $30 million of investor funds.”
Although ZachXBT named the account as Zkasino co-founder Elham Nourzai, the handle seemed to be controlled by another Zkasino co-founder, Ildar Elham.
Read more: ZKasino rug pull suspect arrested in United Arab Emirates
The transaction exists, but who caused it?
The transaction included in the original allegation is a real transaction.
Despite displaying as truncated text, the screenshot in the allegation is authentic from solscan.io, a legitimate block explorer for Solana’s blockchain. There is a transaction that moved 662 SOL out of the cited wallet 14 minutes before the allegation posted to social media.
However, Dharmasena contests whether any bug in the FOMO app caused that movement — and whether it was an unauthorized transfer.
FOMO itself closed a $17 million Series A led by Benchmark in September 2025. Chetan Puttagunta from Benchmark, a top VC firm, took a board seat.
The company also raised a $75 million Series B led by Index Ventures, valuing the company at $550 million, with another leading VC participating, Union Square Ventures.
Balaji Srinivasan and Solana co-founder Raj Gokal are investors.
Read more: Coldcard attack: 25 minutes, 500 wallets, $38M in BTC gone
FOMO app denies responsibility
Derivatives_Ape wrote that FOMO “must have accidentally added something malicious in its new code” and that a friend “could literally watch the funds moving on-chain, but on the FOMO app it still showed as if his balance was there.”
The same post pins total damage at $6 million so far, limited to iOS. No breakdown, victim list or methodology accompanies that estimate.
FOMO’s own security documentation states flatly, “FOMO cannot access, move, or freeze your funds.” That self-custodial design, if true, would make a server-side drain of funds difficult.
Dharmasena argues the wallet named in the complaint never signed a transaction through FOMO’s own fee payer, which although that would exonerate FOMO in his view, is also a bit narrower than saying the wallet never touched the FOMO app at all.
FOMO’s incentive to deny an exploit is obvious. An active drain would threaten a company that has raised roughly $94 million in disclosed funding.
Derivatives_Ape might also have an incentive problem. Dharmasena’s repeated “paid fud” framing alleges coordinated, financially motivated disinformation.
A third-party account came to FOMO’s defense, claiming, “There’s a few other users posting the same text, probably paid by competitors” and that the specific wallet named was “not created through @fomo” at all.
The FOMO iOS app, as of writing time, is still live in Apple’s App Store.
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