Money, Get Away: Fake Celebrity Meme Coin Linked to Pink Floyd and Neymar Is ‘Saddest Launch’ Ever

  decrypt.co 7 h

A meme coin pushed by football star Neymar Jr, Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters, and a number of other accounts with notable followings has failed to pump before it could even dump—something that infamously follows celebrity meme coin launches. Does this mean the celebrity meme coin meta is over?

In what experts have said looks like an organized hack on a number of Twitter accounts, token AB was posted by footballer Neymar Jr’s website account, bassist and lyricist for Pink Floyd Roger Waters, and a number of high follower accounts, including the CEO of a luxury lifestyle brand.

But despite tweets reaching over 3 million people, the token currently sits at an all-time high market cap of $19,000, just 26 holders, and $4 worth of liquidity. No, that last figure isn’t a typo.

I’m officially playing with @s04 for 10 matches straight

This contract is sponsored by Solana

Buy $AB: FE5Z2nXxU7oPtAYQ1VnmntMmEEoK8L9dxP8tnKcLUdpz

— Neymar Jr Site (@NeymarJrSite) September 13, 2024

According to CEO of on-chain analytics company Bubblemaps, Nicolas Vaiman, nobody has made significant profit from the token and it is “the saddest launch I’ve ever seen.”

Neither Roger Waters nor Neymar Jr. immediately responded to a request for comment from Decrypt.

Vaiman said it appears the Twitter posts went out as part of an organized attack with six high follower accounts posting the same contract address within hours of each other. Waters has since deleted the posts.

Looks like Crypto scammers got Roger Waters account. pic.twitter.com/KZsI0N5122

— Jason Bermas (@JasonBermas) September 13, 2024

In the past, meme coins launched with celebrity connections—even if it’s through what they call a hack—have soared to market caps in the millions.

Heavy metal band Metallica says it was hacked back in June. During that time, its account promoted a token called METAL that quickly hit a market cap of $2.85 million before crashing as news spread it was fake. More recently, former teammate of Neymar, Kylian Mbappe posted an MBAPPE token which skyrocketed to a market cap of $464 million. But then it dropped by 99% in just a minute.

It would seem that traders are now more wary of celebrity meme coins after months of meme coins apparently endorsed by stars.

imagine hacking a Neymar jr fan account with 2M followers and Roger Waters’ account to promote a token

only to end up with $4 in liquidity

the celebrity meta is officially dead 😭 pic.twitter.com/WuT7vZ9Hle

— Bubblemaps (@bubblemaps) September 13, 2024

This fad started when Caitlyn Jenner launched a token in collaboration with crypto promoter Sahil Arora—who she later claimed scammed her. Arora then made a name for himself by launching countless other celebrity tokens including a fake Iggy Azalea token, a Jason Derulo coin, and many many more.

But Vaiman believes that this recent tremendous failure of a celebrity pushed token marks the end of the trend adding, “The celebrity meta is officially dead.”

Edited by Stacy Elliott.

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