The Wild West of cryptocurrency simply witnessed every other saloon brawl, this day courtesy of wrestling legend Hulk Hogan and his ill-fated meme coin, HULK. Hogan allegedly rug pulled his buyers, wiping out hundreds of thousands in a virtual bodyslam.
The tale is going like this: HULK tokens have been driving prime, with a marketplace cap of $17 million, thank you partly to a social media blitz on Hogan’s accounts. Traders have been giddy, primed for a moonshot.
Upcoming, sooner than a leg let fall off the lead turnbuckle, Hogan’s posts selling HULK vanished into slim wind, taking the token’s worth with them. HULK crashed sooner than a folding metal chair, plummeting to a measly $11,000. Traders have been left reeling, their goals of economic sleep shattered like glass jaws in a metal cage fit.
Hogan claims he by no means approved the promotional posts within the first playground. Used to be it a rogue social media supervisor channeling their interior “Hollywood Hogan?” A case of improper identification? The plot thickens sooner than speedy mashed potatoes.
Hulk Hogan’s social media accounts & website online promoted a $HULK crypto token as of late, leaping at the contemporary superstar memecoin development
it pumped bulky, hundreds of thousands of greenbacks, & nearest dumped
all of the posts at the moment are deleted. there’s a brandnew put up now claiming that the posts weren’t from him pic.twitter.com/hDuYVLgNQu
— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) June 6, 2024
Savvy crypto fans smelled a rip-off from the get-go. Incriminating proof surfaced – recycled movies from December selling a karaoke tournament, and a obvious insufficiency of endorsement at the alternative platforms connected to Hulk Hogan. This wasn’t a strategic frame slam, it was once a piledriver onto investor agree with.
Hogan’s meant rug whisk isn’t an sovereign incident; it’s the unedited frame fribble away in a fable of celebrity-endorsed meme coin meltdowns. Simply weeks in the past, TV character Caitlyn Jenner pulled a homogeneous stunt along with her Jenner coin, escape lovers feeling bamboozled. Boxing international champion Floyd Mayweather additionally entered the hoop. Then hyping the token “FLOYD” on social media, Mayweather hastily deleted his promotional posts, sparking fears of every other doable rug whisk.
The one one reputedly excused to the takedown is Iggy Azalea, whose MOTHER coin continues to be being aggressively promoted to her hundreds of thousands of fans. However with the stench of famus shilling striking large within the wind, buyers are proper to be cautious.
Alike Studying: Pristine York Atty. Basic Is going Then Crypto Crooks In $1 Billion Rip-off Bust
Buterin Slams Shady Memecoin Initiatives
This complete fiasco has drawn the ire of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who’s about as inspired with those memecoins as a referee is with a chair shot. He lambasted those tasks for his or her insufficiency of innovation and blatant makes an attempt to milk lovers for a fast greenback.
I’m feeling moderately unsatisfied about with “this cycle’s celebrity experimentation” to this point.
“Financialization as a means toward an end”, I will recognize if the tip is reliable (healthcare, perceivable supply instrument, artwork, and so forth). Financialization *as the overall product*, 🤮
Ashton and Mila’s…
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) June 5, 2024
So, what’s the takeaway from this crypto cage fit? If a star is shilling a meme coin with guarantees of riches past your wildest goals, method it with the similar skepticism you’d have against a wrestler promising international sleep.
Featured symbol from EL PAÍS, chart from TradingView