2024 Celebrity Meme Coin: A collective car crash becomes the joke of the year?

The celebrity encryption project failed to establish a virtuous cycle, but instead fell into a mechanism of plunder. This article is from the article "SCENE’s 2024 Story of the Year: The Boom—and Bust—of Celebrity Meme Coins" by Decrypt, compiled, translated, and written by Bitpush. (Background: Not only meme coins, three reasons to look forward to the future development of PENGU) Celebrities entering the Cryptocurrency is not a new thing. As early as 2013, child star Brock Pierce co-founded Blockchain Capital, opening up the precedent for celebrities to enter the encryption field. From former U.S. President Trump to star Lindsay Lohan, celebrities from all walks of life have flocked in an attempt to make a fortune in the Cryptocurrency wave. However, the celebrity effect is not always a panacea. Some people use their influence to support encryption projects, but the results are often unsatisfactory. Over the past decade, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken action on more than ten cases of celebrities illegally promoting Cryptocurrency, and people like Kim Kardashian and STX Mayweather have been punished as a result. What's even more regrettable is that many celebrities were also deeply involved in the FTX exchange scandal, which almost destroyed the entire encryption industry. If celebrities participating in Cryptocurrency is considered "old news," then the 2024 craze for "celebrity meme coin" can be considered a "new trend." With meme coins replacing Non-fungible Tokens as the new favorite of speculators, a large number of celebrities have also followed suit, personally issuing their own meme coins, and even attempting to build business models around these tokens. In just the past year, nearly a dozen European and American celebrities have launched their own meme coins. The community feedback has been more negative than positive. Traditional investors typically believe that BTC investors have a higher risk tolerance, but the fanatics of meme coins are the real risk-takers—just like being in the wild west, the price of the token in their hands may experience a big pump or big dump in an instant. This kind of madness is vividly portrayed on the issuance platform Pump.fun. Olympic decathlon champion Caitlyn Jenner released her own meme coin on the platform, kicking off the trend of celebrity meme coins. Pump.fun has seen many "mind-blowing" stories. There was a user who threatened that if people didn't buy his meme coin, he would end the life of a goldfish; another person vowed to sit on the toilet until his Token Market Cap reached 50 million US dollars (when the Market Cap reached 10 million US dollars, he actually shaved off an eyebrow). Some people have made even more extreme moves, such as a young man who actually "self-immolated." In the heat of Pump.fun, in May 2024, Jenner teamed up with the then actively preparing for the election, Trump, to issuance their own Token. This move sparked huge controversy, with many even suspecting that Jenner's social account had been stolen, or that this was an AI Depth-forged eyewash. Even the co-founder of Pump.fun was shocked. Alon (pseudonym), co-founder of Pump.fun, said in an interview with Decrypt: "I was almost silly at the time." He described it as one of the most crazy moments in the company's short and exciting history: "We tweeted that she had issued a coin, and then we ourselves were dumbfounded, 'Did she really issue a coin?' I completely didn't understand what was going on, it was too crazy." It turns out that the force behind Jenner's "farce" was encryption promoter Sahil Arora. He signed a contract with Jenner, promising to issue a Token for her, and agreed to pay a $50,000 advance and 80% revenue sharing. However, this cooperation quickly turned into a farce. Jenner accused Arora of breach of contract and publicly scolded him on Twitter: "F…k Sahil Arora! He cheated us!" When Jenner was interviewed by Decrypt in May, she said that Sahil Arora had "evaporated" after showing a few wire transfer records and still owed her "a large sum of money." Arora did not respond to Decrypt's request for comment at the time. But this was just the beginning. After cooperating to issue Tokens with R&B singer Jason Derulo, Derulo also publicly accused himself of being deceived by Arora. Arora responded that all of this was "part of the script." Subsequently, Arora also issued Tokens for rap singers Rich the Kid and Lil Pump, and the results were similar with these celebrities all complaining about their experiences. Later, rap singers Cardi B, Waka Flocka Flame, and Sean Kingston also issued their own Tokens, but did not publicly cooperate with Arora. Visual data company Bubbleworks posted a long article on the social platform X, "bombing" Arora, claiming that he earned $30 million this year by representing celebrities in issuing meme coins. Nick Vaiman, co-founder and CEO of Bubblemaps, said in an interview with Decrypt: "Many Tokens had obvious danger signals from the beginning, such as high degree of controlling the market trend, malicious manipulation, and obvious 'shearing leek' strategy." Of course, not all celebrity meme coin issuances ended in a farce. Australian musician Iggy Azalea is an exception. Although her Token MOTHER was questioned by Bubblemaps for being "sniped" 20% of its supply during issuance, she claimed to be completely unaware of this. Bubblemaps' on-chain detective pointed out that only internal personnel who leaked the Token contract Address in advance could have caused this situation. However, after Iggy Azalea participated in a Twitter Spaces event, demonstrating her understanding of encryption and publicly criticizing Arora, public opinion changed. The co-founder of Pump.fun, Alon, said: "When we found out that she really knew what she was talking about, we were very optimistic about her. This feels great." Months later, more and more celebrities issued Tokens, only to end up as junk coins. Jenner even issued an Ethereum Token, causing the price of her initial Solana Token to experience a big dump. So, what is the current situation of these celebrity meme coins? As of writing, Jenner's meme coin Market Cap on Solana is only $357,000, and her Ethereum Token Market Cap is only $139,000, far below their respective peaks of $42 million and $7.5 million. Jason Derulo's JASON Token has dropped by 97.8% from its peak, with a Market Cap shrinking to $783,000; Waka Flocka Flame's FLOCKA Token has dropped by 99%, leaving a Market Cap of only $238,000; bundled Tokens...