The Return of the Rug: ColeThereum's New NFT on Robinhood Chain – A Forensic Analysis

The code whispered what the pitch deck screamed. When Cole Villemain, the disgraced co-founder of Pudgy Penguins, announced his new NFT series on Robinhood Chain, the 50,000 views on X told a story of triumphant return. But as a crypto security auditor who has spent nine years dissecting the gap between marketing and reality, I see something else: a carefully orchestrated nostalgia trap designed to exploit the worst of the current bear market. For context, Villemain’s history reads like a textbook of crypto failures. In 2022, he was voted out of Pudgy Penguins after the community accused him of misappropriating project ETH. The project was sold to Luca Netz for 750 ETH, who transformed it into a legitimate consumer brand—over one million physical toys sold through Walmart and Target. Meanwhile, Villemain’s other ventures were disasters: My Fucking Pickle collapsed 98% from its peak, and eBoy Outlet was exposed by ZachXBT for defrauding customers. Now, he’s back, choosing Robinhood Chain—a platform launched in July 2025 for tokenized stocks and treasuries, but already overrun with memecoins, wallet drainers, and rug pulls, according to Protos. Let me dissect the technical reality. The new series is described as “fantasy video game” themed, but there is no contract, no website, no code. The team is just Villemain. The chain is Robinhood Chain, which has no proven security track record for NFTs. In my audit experience, a project that launches without a verifiable smart contract is a red flag the size of the Titanic. The fact that Villemain himself warns users “no contract or website is live yet” is not a sign of caution; it’s a confession that the product is vaporware. Every exploit is a story poorly told, and this story has no plot beyond the launch. The economic model is equally absent. No supply, no mint price, no royalties. Compare this to the successful Pudgy Penguins, which now has a real business model. Villemain’s plan, as he stated, is to “replay one of the oldest tricks in the NFT playbook from 2021.” That trick is simple: hype, mint, dump. The market is in a deep bear—NFT trading volume is down 97% from its peak. A project with a tainted founder and no product is a recipe for disaster. The bears are right: this is a high-risk gamble with near-zero upside for long-term holders. But the contrarian angle deserves attention. The bulls might argue that Robinhood Chain is a new frontier, and being the first “name” NFT on the chain could capture early liquidity. They might also point to the nostalgia factor—many traders miss the 2021 madness and are willing to gamble on a comeback. The 50,000 views are not buyers; they are voyeurs. The chain’s infrastructure is immature, with Protos reporting rampant scams. The only honest consensus mechanism is silence, and the market is loudly silent on Villemain’s credibility. The project’s entire premise rests on the assumption that the community has forgotten. But the data suggests otherwise: the community is split, with half celebrating and half warning. This is not a unified market. Truth hides in the assembly, not the press release. This project is a test of the market’s collective memory. If the community falls for the same tricks, it proves that the industry has learned nothing. The safest trade is to watch from the sidelines. Beauty is the most sophisticated rug pull, and this one is dressed in the tattered clothes of nostalgia. As I’ve seen many times before, the code will eventually tell the real story—and in this case, the code hasn’t been written yet. That is the loudest signal of all.