Barstool Sports activities founder Dave Portnoy launched his personal token through Pump.enjoyable, “rugged” it, then relaunched a sequel token—which has already tanked 97% from its all time excessive. This comes lower than two weeks since he first entered the meme coin trenches, throughout which he mentioned if he launched his personal coin he wouldn’t rug pull traders.
When Portnoy first began shopping for up meme cash, he publicly claimed his pockets, saying that he’s “not attempting to be shady.” In consequence, crypto degens have carefully adopted and scrutinized each on-chain transfer the sports activities media founder has made. This has included Portnoy shopping for tokens, posting about them on X, after which dumping them.
“If I launch my very own coin, put my title on it. Belief me, I’m going to ensure I don’t get fucking scammed, I’m not going to rug pull, I’m not going to dump. I’m not going to do any of that shit,” Portnoy mentioned lower than two weeks in the past, in response to public scrutiny. “These are different cash which are already on the market.”
Now, it seems that he has launched his personal coin, albeit not along with his title on it, and has dumped it on traders.
On Tuesday, Portnoy launched GREED with an image of Michael Douglas’s character Gordon Gekko from the Wall Road movies—well-known for a monologue claiming that “greed is nice.” The token shortly skyrocketed to a $41.5 million market cap, a very spectacular milestone contemplating the present market situations. Alongside the best way, he purchased $4,200 price of the token. Then, as soon as the token had dipped to round $20 million, he added an extra $1,670 to his bag.
“You understand who doesn’t dump? Me,” Portnoy mentioned on X Areas. “I might have made $1 million on GREED in 30 seconds. You understand what I attempted to do? I attempted to burn the fucking provide. However I received too many meme cash in my factor that it saved freezing.”
Half an hour later, Portnoy dumped each single GREED token he had in a single transaction. The estimated value of the tokens on the time, in keeping with SolScan, was $270,000. He immediately swapped into JAILSTOOL—a token he had beforehand endorsed.
In response, GREED dropped 99% in simply 4 seconds from a $12.88 million market cap to $123,950—resulting in a barrage of “rug” allegations.
“I’m not going anyplace, I believe like this area.” Portnoy mentioned on the finish of his X Areas, earlier than dumping his token. “I believe I could even launch a pair cash a day, only for present. I would launch GREED2 in 5 seconds.“
About 10 minutes after promoting his complete GREED bag, he did simply that. GREED2, nevertheless, was a lot much less profitable. It rose to a $7 million market cap earlier than slowly falling 90% over the following 5 hours. It’s price noting that Portnoy’s doxxed pockets has not bought any GREED2.
Amid the chaos, the unique GREED rallied again to $16.75 million earlier than falling again right down to $4.88 million. It seems Portnoy began to concern he was lacking out, as GREED2 sat at a decrease market cap on the time, so he purchased again into GREED with $12,270. Simply half-hour handed earlier than he bought his bag as soon as once more for about $14,150.
This comes amid what crypto bros are calling “crime season.” Since Donald Trump launched a Solana meme coin days earlier than his inauguration, merchants have mentioned that the variety of questionable crypto launches has skyrocketed.
Most lately, Hayden Davis—the CEO of Kelsier and one of many creators of the controversial LIBRA token promoted by President of Argentina Javier Milei—has claimed that insider buying and selling is rife inside the meme coin area. He mentioned it’s commonplace for groups to snipe their very own tokens, and admitted to doing so on tasks he has labored on.
Portnoy additionally obtained a $5 million refund for his losses on LIBRA through Davis.
After the disastrous LIBRA launch, which has led to President Milei being pressed with fraud expenses, Davis has additionally claimed to have been immediately concerned within the Melania Trump token. Analytics firm Bubblemaps confirmed that the launch groups behind LIBRA and MELANIA are certainly linked through on-chain information.
Regardless of this, in keeping with prediction market Myriad—which is property of Decrypt’s mum or dad firm Dastan—there may be only a 15% probability that Davis might be arrested by the top of the week. Including to the idea that in crime season, something goes.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
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