If you are even slightly familiar with American reality TV, you should know about the famous Kardashian family. Whether it’s the daily extravagance and plastic surgeries of the three sisters, or the jaw-dropping drama of their stepfather’s transition and their mother’s infidelity, the show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” has become a sensational and addictive reality show. The Kardashian family has become well-known internet celebrities, with their influence reaching far and wide.
Recently, a member of the Kardashian family entered the cryptocurrency world, and in just two days, the crypto community experienced a 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!” Underneath the tweet, she attached a link to the $Jenner token on the token generation platform, pump.fun. Caitlyn Jenner also tagged a series of crypto community meme veterans such as Ansem, Paul, and SolJakey to promote the token.
This stepfather is no ordinary person. Formerly known as Bruce Jenner, he was an Olympic athlete in track and field, winning the Olympic decathlon gold medal. Later, he married Kris Jenner, the mother of Kim Kardashian, and together they raised five children. At the age of 65, he underwent gender transition surgery and officially became Caitlyn Jenner. Caitlyn can be considered one of the most prominent transgender individuals in American history, with 3.36 million followers on the X platform.
Due to her immense influence, the news instantly caught the attention of the crypto community. Within just half an hour of going live, the Jenner token surged 15 times, and after an hour, it had increased by 70 times, becoming the absolute star token on pump.fun.
However, on the other hand, despite it not being uncommon for celebrities to launch their own tokens, there were cautious individuals in the community who believed that this might be another case of a hacked account, especially after the recent GCR hacking incident. They called for rational purchase decisions.
The facts seemed to confirm these suspicions. One hour later, the token developer suddenly dumped 160 SOL worth of tokens from the liquidity pool, causing Jenner’s value to plummet. The community felt uneasy, and insults and curses flew. Just as Jenner was on the verge of zeroing out, Caitlyn Jenner once again stepped in to give the token a boost.
Caitlyn updated her Instagram account with a quick snap, saying, “7 million dollars in one hour, team Caitlyn Jenner and Sophia Hutchins (Jenner’s manager).” Sophia also reposted the snap, and Caitlyn started interacting with everyone on the X platform, emphasizing that her account had not been hacked.
Despite the community’s doubts, Jenner token’s price started rising again, and it surged more than six times. Perhaps satisfied with the upward trend, Caitlyn appeared on the X platform again 30 minutes later and posted a video of herself, confirming that the token was indeed launched by her and that she was just enjoying her vacation playing golf and would not participate in the team’s upcoming Space event.
The real-life appearance obviously increased credibility, and the token price continued to skyrocket, reaching a peak increase of 160%. However, cautious community members raised new concerns that the video might be a deepfake. Otherwise, why would the developer sell off the tokens?
Deepfakes are not unfamiliar to the public, as they use neural network technology to learn from large samples and use machine learning models to splice and synthesize false content, including personal voices, facial expressions, and body movements, in videos. In other words, AI can swap faces and mimic voices in videos with indistinguishable results. Deepfakes have been widely used in recent months, with one example being a video of “Indian Prime Minister Modi dancing to Bengali pop music.”
Doubts arose again, and the token price started to dive, experiencing another significant drop. Just when everyone thought the situation was under control, Caitlyn held a Space event on her X account, and her manager Sophia once again spoke up to refute the claims. With strong evidence, the previously accused deepfake statements were deleted, and the token’s market value skyrocketed from $4 million to over $20 million. In just two hours of multiple reversals, the Jenner token had increased 35 times.
Just when everyone thought the dust had settled, the market took another 180-degree turn. The manager announced that they would release another token. People who had bought the first token for its popularity and visibility saw its value plummet. Jenner experienced another sell-off, dropping 70% in half an hour.
The situation became unfavorable once again, but Caitlyn came to the rescue, emphasizing that the team would only focus on $Jenner and would not launch any other tokens. By the third reversal, the token had been live for just over two hours. At 8:20 am, Caitlyn posted a new video on her official account, celebrating the token reaching a market value of millions of dollars within four hours and stating that there was no forgery, and the cryptocurrency 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 started sharing their successful trades, but the drama continued.
At 2 am on May 38th, Caitlyn unexpectedly posted a new pump token called BBARK. After the news broke, JENNER plummeted from $0.027 to $0.011 in an instant, and Caitlyn urgently deleted the tweet. In subsequent updates, she added an advertisement label, stating that it was a promotion for other tokens in response to the previous claim of not launching any other tokens.
BBARK went through a bloodbath of market value surge followed by a sharp decline, similar to Jenner’s experience. While Jenner stabilized and recovered, currently trading at $0.01872, with a market value of $20 million. Caitlyn is continuously posting news about crypto and tokens on her Twitter account. Some have jokingly said, “You conquered the entire crypto market in 48 hours.”
The crypto market is used to big rises and falls, but the multiple reversals within a short period of time make the Kardashians’ drama unique. The entry of celebrities into the crypto world has also sparked discussions in the community. Supporters believe that this move can promote widespread use of cryptocurrency and introduce more well-known figures to promote crypto, such as the more controversial Kim Kardashian. Opponents argue that being publicly manipulated and having every move affecting token prices is not a good thing, and 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 authority, has been cracking down on KOL marketing of cryptocurrency projects. In October 2022, Kim Kardashian was paid $1.3 million to settle charges by regulatory agencies against her for promoting and endorsing cryptocurrencies without disclosing her relationship with the coins. Following this, several other celebrities, including Floyd Mayweather and Lindsay Lohan, were fined by the SEC for similar reasons.
Although Caitlyn openly admits to being the issuer and marketer of the token, the multiple reversals based on her actions suggest a violation of securities laws, especially as many meme tokens themselves are subject to suspicion of being securities. When we think about it, with just a few casual words, a token can reach a market value of millions, and retail investors’ hard-earned money can be easily influenced. Is this really legal?
Turning to celebrities, in reality, besides holding cryptocurrencies directly, most celebrities who entered the crypto market early on started with NFTs. During the peak of NFT popularity, not only popular overseas stars but also well-known idols in China such as Chen Kunxi, JJ Lin, Jay Chou, Ingrid Yinyi, and Will Pan launched their own NFT projects, some of which achieved high prices due to the celebrity effect. However, today, almost all celebrity NFTs have fallen flat.
Recently, netizens inquired on Chen Kunxi’s social media platform about whether his 2426CNFT project is still operational. And from recent observations, the NFT “Nobody” launched by Stephen Chow in January this year had a trading volume that surpassed 3,500 ETH overnight, and the floor price skyrocketed from 0.15 ETH to nearly 0.98 ETH, before falling back to 0.108 ETH.
It can be seen that the celebrity effect is undoubtedly a double-edged sword. It can quickly accumulate traffic, but it can also easily become a tool to exploit retail investors. Especially for current celebrities, when they launch tokens or NFTs, many of them have little knowledge of how the crypto market operates, and their long-term operational plans are not clear. An example is Caitlyn’s manager revealing the existence of a second token while the initial token was still rising. The initial token dump also proved this point, although Caitlyn later claimed to have been deceived by the token developer, Sahil Arora. But ultimately, for them, launching tokens may just be a way to raise funds and confirm their influence.
It is unfortunate that as celebrities, they can easily monetize their popularity. However, retail investors in the crypto industry continue to chase hot trends, hoping to make a fortune before the train stops. Of course, there are also those who successfully make profits. For example, a lucky trader claimed to have earned over $100,000 in profits from just 3 SOL. But everyone knows where the profits in a casino come from. When retail investors continue to ride the turbulent train, 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, while meme casinos are everywhere. The community has previously had numerous debates on the influence of memes, with A16z even openly criticizing memes for destroying crypto innovation. However, opponents argue that without memes, 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 brought the two most valuable tokens in the crypto field into its fold. For ordinary retail investors, although bull markets come and go, opportunities for the average person will never disappear. However, it is evident that the dividends are being eroded, and the possibility of getting rich quickly is decreasing. Going back ten years, mining machines could bring huge profits, and holding certain coins could result in hundredfold increases; going back four years, trying out DeFi and airdrops could yield decent returns; going back three years, owning an NFT could bring freedom. But now, Bitcoin is approaching $68,000, and Ethereum is touching $3,800, airdrops are abundant, and the entry ticket is already very expensive.
In contrast, meme tokens may be one of the stories with the highest odds, with retail investors being carried along, continuing to fluctuate in the rapid iterations of rises and falls.
Tags:
fun
MEME
MEME CONTEST
NFT
SOL
token
Ethereum
cryptocurrency
Kardashian
crypto community
Bitcoin
Source link:
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/YxXzHIJDJbTtQ4ucP7__kg
Original article link:
https://www.bitpush.news/articles/6812747
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