Rug-pull
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A sudden revelation that completely contradicts the assumptions one has been led to believe.
"Perhaps this necessity to be on guard for the next rug-pull is what makes A Footstep of Air proceed in fatiguing seesaws instead of invigorating changes of pace."
- 2 A fraud scheme where anonymous founders trick people into investing money for a cryptocurrency project which is then abandoned.
"Victims of rug pulls are often left with little recourse against nameless thieves. […] The anonymous founders of a crypto collective called AnubisDAO raised nearly $60 million in a few hours last year; less than a day later, the funds disappeared in the second-largest rug pull of 2021, according to the blockchain-tracking firm Chainalysis."
Example
More examples"Perhaps this necessity to be on guard for the next rug-pull is what makes A Footstep of Air proceed in fatiguing seesaws instead of invigorating changes of pace."
Etymology
A back-formation from pull the rug out from under.
More for "rug-pull"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.