Blockchain investigator ZachXBT is advising traders to exercise caution as a new celebrity-backed memecoin featuring rapper Soulja Boy gains traction on social media.
Jesse Pollak, a co-founder of Coinbase’s Base network, attracted fresh scrutiny over the weekend after publicly sharing what he characterized as a receipt showing a $1,500 purchase of Ether (ETH) that he invested in the token in a post on X.
“Why give SouljaBoy the platform to scam new people,” retorted the pseudonymous blockchain investigator ZachXBT, referencing a research thread from April 2023, detailing six tokens endorsed by the rapper — all of which turned out to be rug pulls or were abandoned shortly after the endorsement.
In crypto slang, a rug pull signifies a scam where developers abandon the project and withdraw invested capital from tokenholders, often within days of the token’s launch.
ZachXBT’s thread mentioned tokens including RapDoge, Orion, The Life Token, Flokinomics, and SafeMars, which he labeled as Soulja Boy’s “most infamous shill,” claiming that the rapper left compensation details visible in a promotional post.
Related: Crypto speculation at 2024 lows as TradFi leveraged ETFs hit record $239B
The rapper also launched at least nine non-fungible token (NFT) collections during 2021, most of which have since been deleted, withdrawn from OpenSea, or failed to provide the promised “utility,” according to the blockchain investigator.
ZachXBT estimated that Soulja Boy raked in a total of $730,000 from promotions during the 2021 bull market cycle, when the rapper was charging $12,000 per Instagram and $10,000 per X promotion, according to a leaked price list shared by the investigator.
The new Soulja Boy (SOULJABOY) token failed to gain significant traction. Since its launch on Friday, the token has reached an $85,000 market capitalization and attracted investment from 331 holders, according to data from the Base app.
Related: Crypto nears its ‘Netscape moment’ as industry approaches inflection point
Soulja Boy apologizes for “paid promos,” claims it was “years ago”
The rapper took to X to defend himself, asserting that he has “learned a lot since then,” and that he takes full responsibility for his lack of due diligence.
“I had no knowledge that a scammer named Sahil was involved or paying me to promote anything fraudulent.”
“At the time, I was doing paid promotions without understanding the crypto/NFT space the way I do now,” the rapper elaborated.
In February 2022, Soulja Boy and several other high-profile celebrities were implicated in a class-action lawsuit for their alleged involvement in a pump-and-dump scheme concerning the SafeMoon token.
According to the lawsuit, SafeMoon and its affiliates mimicked real-life Ponzi schemes by misleading investors into purchasing SafeMoon tokens under the guise of unrealistic profits.
Magazine: Caitlyn Jenner memecoin ‘mastermind’s’ celebrity price list leaked
