SCENE’s 2024 Story of the Year: The Boom—and Bust—of Celebrity Meme Coins

Celebrities and bitcoin? Nothing fresh about that, right? Ever since Brock Pierce—who as a child starred in the Walt Disney film, The Magnificent Ducks—co-founded Blockchain Capital, in 2013, some of the nation’s most famous people, from Donald Trump to Lindsay Lohan, have leaned into blockchain to see what was in it for them.

Some famous people were able to use their glamorous names to re-launch their crypto projects with repetitive outcomes. Over the past ten years, the SEC has brought legal action in a few cases, involving people who have received fines for their special hobbies, from Kim Kardashian to Floyd Mayweather Jr. Celebrities were also a part of the numerous victims of the FTX incident, which almost ended the crypto business.

But stars being a part of crypto—not fresh. The introduction of the brand image gold what fresh and became a hot topic last year. The star meme coin emerged as the degen’s preferred method of gambling as joke coins replaced NFTs, with almost a dozen stars launching their own coins in the last year.

These bloggers are not just promoting the cash, they’re truly creating cash in their own image, promoting them and, in some cases, trying to find companies around them. For better—and, much more frequent, for worse.

Traditional investors frequently think that Bitcoin investors have higher risk standards, but image gold degens are the true mavericks —shooting it out in the Wild West with tokens that can rise or crumble at any time. &nbsp,

And nowhere is that more evident than on the favorite image coin-launching system, Pump. excitement. &nbsp,

Caitlyn Jenner, an Olympic decathlete, was the one who declawed the star image craze by launching her meme that. Pump. entertaining, it should be noted, is where individuals do ridiculous things to get attention. One person threatened to kill a goldfish unless you purchased his meme coin, and another threatened to use the toilet until his token had a market cap of$ 50 million ( and actually shaved off one eyebrow when it reached$ 10 million ). Some went yet further, including a man who set himself on fire.

In May, in this rodeo environment, Jenner decided to launch her token—posing with Donald Trump, who was then mounting his re-election charge. &nbsp,

It’s difficult to overstate how stupid this incident was; many folks questioned whether Jenner really existed. Her X accounts was evidently compromised. Then she posted a picture with a peculiar Snapchat filter on, giving some people the impression of an artificial intelligence algorithmic scam. Yet the father of Pump. joy was immediately gobsmacked.

” I was shitting my jeans”, anonymous Pump. entertaining co-founder Alon told He claimed that the occasion was one of the funniest in the company’s brief but exciting history:” We published a message about it—that she launched a penny and stuff,” and then we were like,” Did she also launch a penny?” I had no idea what was happening. It was so crazy”.

It turns out that Sahil Arora, a crypto promoter who had agreed to work with Jenner and promising to start the key, had enabled the stunt. According to the contract shared by Arora and reviewed by , he agreed to pay the “talent “—Jenner —$ 50, 000 upfront and to provide her 80 % of all generated revenue. &nbsp,

It may have been the true bargain at the start, but Jenner almost immediately cried foul, claiming&nbsp, that Arora didn’t defend his part of the deal.

“FUCK SAHIL”, Jenner tweeted at a writer, who had asked about Arora. ” He SCAMMED us”. Jenner claimed in May that Arora had “radio motionless” and that the crypto producer nevertheless owed her “lots of income” to . ‘s request for comment at the time was ignored by Arora, but Sahil just had a few days to go.

After launching a Pump. fun sign with R&amp, B songwriter Jason Derulo, who also claimed he’d been bamboozled by Arora, the publicist told the episode had been “orchestrated”. Arora responded when asked why Derulo would be making him famous in public, saying it was all “part of the script.”

Arora then proceeded to produce the same tokens for rappers Rich the Kid and Lil Pump, both of whom later expressed disapproval of the experience. Other famous people followed suit, including Sean Kingston and Cardi B and Waka Flocka Flame, who both launched their own tokens independently of Arora.

Arora was targeted by data visualization startup Bubbleworks in a protracted X thread, and the promoter claimed to have made$ 30 million in honor of the stars who had created meme coins this year.

” Many of these tokens were launched with obvious red flags from day one”, Nick Vaiman, co-founder and CEO of Bubblemaps, told . He pointed to factors such as “heavily controlled supply, malicious intent, and clear strategies to rug-pull and dump on retail investors” .&nbsp,

Not all celebrity meme coin launches ended in tears. The exception was SCENE’S Person of the Year, Australian musician Iggy Azalea. She claimed that this was done without her knowledge because 20 % of Bubblemaps ‘ supply was sniped at launch. That may be true, but as Bubblemaps on-chain sleuths pointed out at the time, the only way a token can be snipped like that is by someone early leaking the coin’s contract address to a group of insiders.

Nevertheless, the tides of perception turned after Azalea held a Twitter Spaces, demonstrated her crypto knowledge, and slammed Arora in the process.

” When we found that she knew what she was doing, we were super bullish on her”, Alon told . ” It was amazing—a great feeling”.

More and more celebrities started making tokens and leaving them as the years went on. Even after Jennifer launched an Ethereum token, the price of her original Solana token dropped.

How effective are these celebrity memes?

At the time of writing, Jenner’s Solana token sits at a market cap of$ 357, 000 while her Ethereum is at just$ 139, 000—a fraction of the$ 42 million and$ 7.5 million peak market caps they respectively hit before plunging.

Jason Derulo’s JASON token is down 97.8 % from its peak to a market cap of$ 783, 000, Waka Flocka Flame’s FLOCKA is down 99 % to$ 238, 000, and the hugely bundled WAP is down a whopping 99.65 % to less than$ 138, 000.

” Most celebrities go in here with the worst fucking intentions”, Azalea told . I don’t believe any of them, in my opinion, wants to create a crypto token. They may think they can get quick money out of this, but I believe they’ll just fuck it.

Needless to say, the first lawsuit has been filed now that these tokens are falling and celebrities are leaving their projects. A group of investors sued Jenner and her manager Sophia Hutchins in November, alleging that she had falsely presented her Solana meme coin as security and had not registered it as a security.

Jenner’s team did not respond to ‘s request for comment.

Some crypto law experts say get ready for more civil litigation:” We are going to see an uptick in lawsuits involving celebrity-endorsed meme coins”, cyber law attorney Andrew Rossow told . Celebrities will start to become more and more legally accountable for their promotional activities, as well as their potential” sellers” of these digital assets, opening them up to a wider range of legal repercussions.

Digital assets lawyer CarloD’Angelo told that” the Jenner lawsuit serves as a clear warning to any celebrity who believes they can use their fame to overpromise and underdeliver a meme coin launch solely to make a quick buck.“

Celebrity meme coins have been criticized by some as being excellent for introducing the next wave of crypto traders. Arora, for example, told that he kick-started the celebrity meta to make crypto more mainstream than ever.

” To sustain hope and inspire others, a trend needs to appeal to a broad audience and generate at least a small number of winners.” Bubblemaps ‘ Vaiman finished. ” Instead, celebrity projects have only extracted liquidity from retail, leaving everyone else as losers”.