If you pay even a little attention to American variety shows, you would know about the famous Kardashian family. Whether it’s the daily show-off of wealth and plastic surgery between the three sisters or the crazy drama of the stepfather’s sex change and the mother’s affair, the reality show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” has become a highly entertaining and popular show. And the members of the Kardashian family have become well-known internet celebrities.
Recently, a member of the Kardashian family entered the crypto world, and in the past two days of coin issuance, the crypto community has experienced the crazy drama reminiscent of the Kardashians.
At 4 am on May 27th, Caitlyn Jenner, the stepfather of the Kardashian sisters, suddenly posted a photo on her X account shaking hands with Donald Trump, with the caption “make america great again!!! and we love crypto!”, and attached a link to the $Jenner token on the token generation platform pump.fun. At the same time, Caitlyn Jenner also mentioned a series of senior players in the crypto community, such as Ansem, Paul, SolJakey, to promote the token.
This stepfather is no ordinary person. Originally named Bruce Jenner, he was a former American Olympic athlete who won the decathlon championship. He later met Kris Jenner, the mother of Kim Kardashian, in his second marriage and raised five children with her. At the age of 65, he underwent gender reassignment surgery and officially became Caitlyn Jenner. Caitlyn can be considered one of the most representative transgender people in American history, with 3.36 million followers on the X platform.
Due to Caitlyn’s huge influence, the news instantly caught the attention of the crypto community. Within half an hour of going online, the Jenner token surged 15 times, and one hour later, it had increased 70 times, becoming an absolute star token on pump.fun.
But on the other hand, although it is not uncommon for celebrities to issue tokens, due to the recent GCR account theft incident and Caitlyn’s lack of previous contact with the crypto community, let alone using pump.fun for token generation, some cautious community members believe that this is just another case of account theft and call for rational buying.
The facts seem to confirm these fearful speculations. One hour later, the token developer suddenly sold 160 SOL tokens from the liquidity pool, causing the Jenner token to plummet under the selling pressure. The community felt uneasy and curses and insults flew. Just as Jenner was running towards zero, Caitlyn Jenner once again appeared to give the token a boost.
Caitlyn updated her Instagram account with a quick snap, stating, “7 million dollars in one hour, the team is Caitlyn Jenner and Sophia Hutchins (Jenner’s manager).” Sophia also reposted the snap, and then Caitlyn started interacting with everyone on the X platform, emphasizing that her account was not hacked.
Regarding this inexplicable behavior, the crypto community was also puzzled. But based on their trust in Caitlyn and the temptation of token profits, the Jenner token recovered from its decline and once again skyrocketed, rising more than 6 times. Perhaps satisfied with the upward trend, 30 minutes later, Caitlyn appeared on the X platform again and posted a video of herself, admitting that she was the one who issued the token, but she was currently playing golf and enjoying her vacation and would not participate in the team’s upcoming Space event.
The real appearance clearly increased credibility, and the token price continued to rise, increasing by 70% within minutes. But soon, cautious community members raised new suspicions of fraud. Could this video be a deepfake? Why did the developer sell the tokens?
Deepfakes are not new to the public. They use neural network technology for large-scale learning and use machine learning models to synthesize false content by splicing personal voices, facial expressions, and body movements. In short, AI can swap faces and voices of people in videos, making it indistinguishable from real humans. Deepfakes have been frequent in recent months, with videos like “Indian Prime Minister Modi dancing to popular Bengali music” appearing in the Indian elections.
Doubts arose again, and the token price began to plummet, experiencing another sharp decline. Seeing the situation getting out of control, Caitlyn held a Space event on her X account, and her manager Sophia spoke on her behalf to debunk the rumors. With strong evidence, the previous claims of deepfake fraud began to be deleted, and the token market value skyrocketed from $4 million to over $20 million. In just two hours of multiple reversals, the Jenner token had increased 35 times from its initial launch price.
Just when everyone thought things had settled, the market took a 180-degree turn. The manager announced that they would release another token. For those who bought the token for its popularity and exposure, the value of the first token would inevitably plummet. With this expectation, Jenner faced another sell-off, with a 70% drop in half an hour.
The situation became unfavorable again, and Caitlyn came to the rescue, emphasizing that the team would only focus on $Jenner and would not launch any other tokens. As of the third reversal, the token had only been online for a little over two hours. At 8:20 am, Caitlyn posted a new video on her official account, claiming that the token had reached a market value of millions in just four hours and stating that there was no forgery, the crypto token was real.
Finally, retail investors let go of their concerns, and the token skyrocketed, reaching an increase of over 160 times at its peak. Traders began to share their gains, but the drama continued.
At 2 am on May 38th, Caitlyn unexpectedly released a new pump token called BBARK. After the news came out, JENNER instantly plummeted from $0.027 to $0.011, and Caitlyn quickly deleted the tweet. In subsequent updates, she marked it as an advertisement, stating that it was a promotion for other tokens in response to the previous statement of not launching other tokens.
BBARK experienced a bloodbath similar to Jenner, with its market value rising and then plummeting. While Jenner recovered, it is currently trading at $0.01872, with a stable market value of $20 million. Caitlyn is continuously posting news about crypto and tokens on her Twitter account. Some people jokingly say, “You conquered the entire crypto world in 48 hours.”
The crypto market is no stranger to big rises and falls, but the Kardashians are truly unique in their multiple reversals in such a short period of time. The entry of celebrities into the crypto world has also sparked discussions in the community. Supporters believe that this move can promote the widespread use of crypto and introduce more well-known figures to promote crypto, such as the more controversial Kim Kardashian. Opponents believe that being publicly played like this is not a good thing, as every action affects the token price. Some even joke that it violates securities laws.
This statement is not unfounded. In recent years, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as the regulatory body, has continuously cracked down on KOL marketing of cryptocurrency projects. In October 2022, Kim Kardashian paid $1.3 million to settle the charges brought against her by the regulatory agency for promoting and endorsing without disclosing her relationship with the tokens. Since then, several celebrities, including Floyd Mayweather and Lindsay Lohan, have been fined by the SEC for the same reason.
Although Caitlyn openly admitted to being the issuer and marketer of the token, based on the market’s reactions to her multiple reversals, these actions may violate securities laws, especially since many MEME tokens themselves are difficult to escape suspicion of being securities. Let’s be honest, with just a few casual words, a token’s market value can reach millions, and retail investors’ hard-earned money is easily manipulated. Is this really legal?
Returning to the celebrities, in fact, besides holding tokens, most celebrities who entered the crypto market early started with NFTs. During the peak of NFTs’ popularity, besides popular overseas stars, well-known idols in China, such as Chen Kun, JJ Lin, Jay Chou, Yi Nengjing, and Wilber Pan, have all launched their own NFT projects, some of which have achieved sky-high prices due to the celebrity effect. But now, almost all celebrity NFTs have fallen.
Recently, some netizens questioned whether Chen Kun’s 2426CNFT project is no longer in operation on his social media platform. And from recent observations, the NFT “Nobody” launched by Stephen Chow in January this year had a trading volume of over 3,500 ETH overnight, and the floor price skyrocketed from 0.15 ETH to nearly 0.98 ETH, but now it has fallen to 0.108 ETH.
It can be seen that the celebrity effect is undoubtedly a double-edged sword. It can quickly accumulate a large number of followers, but it can also easily become a tool for cutting leeks. Especially for today’s celebrities, when they launch a token or NFT, they often have little understanding of how the crypto market works, and their long-term operating plans are not clear. The behavior of Caitlyn’s manager, who revealed the existence of a second token while the first one was still rising, and the initial token dumping, proved this point. Although Caitlyn later claimed to have been deceived by the token developer Sahil Arora, in the end, for them, issuing tokens may simply be a way to raise funds and confirm their influence.
It is very sad that as celebrities, they can easily monetize their influence. But for retail investors in the crypto world, they are earnestly chasing trends, hoping to get rich quick before the train brakes. Of course, there are also successful ones who manage to get on board. For example, one lucky trader claimed to have made over $100,000 in profits from 3 SOL tokens. But everyone knows where the casino’s profits come from. While retail investors continue to ride the roller coaster of ups and downs, the celebrities are enjoying their golf vacations.
On the other hand, the prevalence of MEME culture has once again raised doubts about the core of crypto. The so-called freedom and decentralization have become false propositions, as true disruptive applications are hard to find, but MEME casinos are everywhere. The community has previously had multiple debates about the influence of MEME, and A16z has publicly criticized MEME for destroying crypto innovation. However, opponents also argue that without MEME, there would be no liquidity, and without liquidity, the crypto industry would lack a key driving force for development.
With the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, traditional finance has added the two most valuable tokens in the crypto field to its portfolio. For ordinary retail investors, although bull markets come and go and opportunities for ordinary people never disappear, it is evident that the dividends are being eroded and the possibility of getting rich quickly is steadily decreasing. Looking back ten years ago, mining machines could bring huge profits, holding certain tokens could see hundredfold increases; looking back four years ago, trying out DeFi and airdrops could yield decent income; looking back three years ago, an NFT alone could lead to freedom. But now, Bitcoin is approaching $68,000 and Ethereum has reached $3,800. Airdrops are everywhere, and the entry ticket is very expensive.
In contrast, MEME may be one of the stories with the highest odds, and retail investors are carried along, continuing to rise and fall in the rapid iterations of the market.
Tags:
fun
MEME
MEME CONTEST
NFT
SOL
tokens
Ethereum
crypto
Kardashians
crypto community
Bitcoin
Source: https://www.bitpush.news/articles/6812747
Note: The translation is provided as is with no explanations.