Remember when crypto was a revolutionary idea? A beacon of decentralized finance and freedom from traditional banking chains? Well, fast forward to today, and things are looking a little less utopian and a lot more dystopian.
Thanks to cruel celebrities like Davido, Ronaldinho, Caitlyn Jenner, and Jason Derulo, what was once a dream for financial liberation is increasingly becoming a playground for meme coins and rug pulls. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I think of financial advice, my mind doesn’t exactly jump to pop stars.
And for a good reason.
These meme coins are spreading faster than a [bad] TikTok challenge. They promise the moon but deliver a handful of dust – and not even the good kind you find on the moon.
It’s like we’ve taken the revolutionary potential of blockchain technology and used it to create digital Beanie Babies. Except Beanie Babies at least had the decency to be cuddly.
It’s almost poetic, in a way, how these tokens mirror the fleeting fame of their namesakes. What goes up must come down, especially when it’s built on nothing but hot air.
The A-list of crypto calamities
First up, we have Caitlyn Jenner, who’s gone from Olympic gold to crypto cold with her JENNER token. This rollercoaster ride started on Solana, crashed harder than a Kardashian marriage, and then miraculously resurfaced on Ethereum.
It was like watching a car crash in slow motion, except the car is made of your hopes, dreams, and hard-earned money. Now watch this video below and decide for yourself if it sounds like someone who has enough knowledge of crypto to create one:
Then there’s Ronaldinho, the Brazilian soccer player who had the brilliant idea to change the meaning of the word “dribbling” to mean slowly leaking away investors’ money.
His ’18kRonaldinho’ venture promised daily returns of over 2% – because, YES, that’s totally sustainable and not at all suspicious :). Now he’s playing defense in a $61 million lawsuit and deleting tweets that will implicate him. Talk about being an idiot.
Last night, he tweeted that it’s time for crypto to go mainstream. The second blockchain detective, ZachXBT, responded to the tweet asking if it was code for him about to be bankrupt again; he deleted that tweet, too. But not before Zach caught a screenshot:
Let’s not forget Davido, the Afrobeats star who launched DAVIDO. Because nothing says “I care about my poor fans” quite like convincing them to invest in a token with your name on it.
It’s like a digital autograph, except instead of being worthless immediately, it becomes worthless over time! Isn’t that just beautiful?
After the scam, he had the hilarious audacity to post a screenshot of a donation he made to an orphanage using the money he stole from countless innocent people.
Keep in mind that David comes from generational wealth. He did not need the money he scammed; no, he simply did it for the love of the game.
And then there’s Jason Derulo.
Oh, Jason.
Sweet, tone-deaf Jason.
He’s been endorsing and launching rug pulls faster than he can auto-tune a track. It’s like he’s trying to set a Guinness World Record for “Most Financial Disasters Caused by a Single Pop Star.”
The man is not only insensitive and crass in the way he operates in this industry, but he has also shown himself to be unbelievably effing dumb.
I mean, hear me out. He has the least knowledge of crypto than any of the others. He has no idea how a transaction works or what dexscreener even is. Nothing he says about crypto ever makes sense. HOW does one fall for a scammer as dumb as this one? People!!!
LOL indeed.
You know, when Satoshi Nakamoto penned that whitepaper back in ’08, I’m pretty sure “create a platform for D-list celebrities to scam their fans” wasn’t on the list of goals. Yet here we are, watching the crypto market turn into a bizarre fusion of TMZ and Wolf of Wall Street.
Sahil Arora: The king of crypto rug pulls
Amidst these celebrity escapades, let’s not forget our friendly neighborhood Satan, Sahil Arora. He’s the cherry on top of this disastrous sundae.
Sahil is a notorious scammer influencer who’s like the Voldemort of the crypto world—if Voldemort wore Supreme and constantly tweeted about “grinding.”
This guy’s got more rug pulls to his name than an IKEA warehouse. He’s the poster child for everything wrong with the current state of crypto. Guy gives Martin Shkreli a run for his money when it comes to being the worst person on earth.
His main account, Habibi_Comm on X (formerly Twitter), was suspended for violating the platform’s policies. He has fabricated many screenshots of non-existent conversations with celebrities to promote fraudulent tokens.
Sahil has been involved in launching meme coins themed after high-profile figures such as Iggy Azalea, Caitlyn Jenner, Rich the Kid, and Offset.
Several celebrities, including Caitlyn herself and Rich the Kid, have claimed they were scammed by Sahil. Despite the ban on his main account, Sahil has continued to promote meme coins on backup accounts and Telegram.
He’s also the mastermind behind the rug pull associated with former NBA star Dwight Howard. Sahil denies that his campaigns are scams, claiming that people just “couldn’t time right entries, so they got burned.”
The real cost of celebrity crypto chaos
Here’s the thing, guys. While we’re all having a good laugh at these celebrity crypto capers, there’s a serious side to this circus. Real people are losing real money. It’s not just numbers on a screen; it’s college funds, retirement savings, and dreams of financial independence going up in smoke.
These celebrities, with their massive platforms and influence, have a responsibility. But instead of using their power for good, they’re hawking digital snake oil to their fans. It’s like they took a look at decentralized finance and thought: “You know what this needs? More chaos and less accountability!”
The worst part? This celebrity meme coin mania is giving the entire crypto space a bad name. We’re trying to build a decentralized future here, and these jokers are turning it into a punchline.
It’s harder to argue for the legitimacy of blockchain technology when every other headline is about another celebrity-endorsed coin doing a nosedive.
So, what’s the solution? Well, for starters, maybe we could all agree to stop throwing money at every shiny new token with a famous name attached to it.
I know, I know, it’s a radical concept.
But hear me out –
What if we invested in projects with actual use cases and solid tech instead?
And to the one hundred celebrities out there considering launching their coins too: please, for the love of all that is holy and decentralized, don’t.
Stick to what you’re good at. Sing, dance, act, kick balls around, make up lies about your personal life routinely, cheat on your spouse – whatever it is you do. Leave the crypto to the nerds who actually understand it.
And perhaps have a little compassion for the poor while you’re at it.
In the meantime, I’ll be over here, clutching my Bitcoin, whispering sweet nothings to my hardware wallet, and dreaming of a day when “celebrity token” is nothing more than a bad memory.
Stay safe out there, folks, and remember – just because someone’s famous doesn’t mean they have sense. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go check if my MOTHER has finally mooned. (Spoiler: it hasn’t.)
Jai Hamid
