Cristiano Ronaldo Meme Coin Rumors Gasoline $143 Million CR7 ‘Rug Pull’ – Decrypt

A spree of pretend tokens impressed by soccer icon Cristiano Ronaldo cropped up over the weekend, because of rumors he was about to launch a meme coin. However they don’t seem like greater than rumors as Decrypt couldn’t discover any credible sources on the matter. 

One of many tokens reached a $143 million market cap earlier than crashing 98%—all in simply quarter-hour.

The CR7 token, based mostly on the athlete’s nickname, seems to have been promoted by a number of influencers. However most of them have already deleted their posts. On-chain analyst agency Bubblemaps believes the faux meme coin was probably an organized group effort.

“It’s probably that after Kanye West launched YZY, some influencers jumped onto the wave and claimed Cristiano Ronaldo would launch a token too, utilizing their accounts,” pseudonymous Bubblemaps sleuth 0xToolman informed Decrypt. “Then they launched an unendorsed token and posted the contract deal with, luring buyers in, solely to rug pull shortly after.”

Lots of the rumors cling to Ronaldo’s partnership with Binance, which began in 2022 and has seen the discharge of 4 NFT collections. Nonetheless, most faux tokens that launched had been discovered on Solana, with a minimum of 5 different seemingly faux CR7 meme cash launching on the community—all of which didn’t break previous a $1 million market capitalization.

It was solely the influencer-pushed token that made any waves, hovering to a $143.18 million market cap in simply six minutes. However the buzz was fleeting. The token crashed 98% over the following 9 minutes, in keeping with DEX Screener. The value drop got here on account of a sequence of fast gross sales by a number of addresses, Bubblemaps informed Decrypt.

There have been no social media posts from Ronaldo concerning any plans for an official token, outdoors of the launched Binance NFTs.

The launch follows Ye, previously Kanye West, launching his personal official token after half a yr of hypothesis. YZY hit a $411.23 million market cap an hour after it was introduced, per DEX Screener, earlier than plummeting 74% to $105 million over the following 24 hours.

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Since then, the YZY Cash X account has began to assert that the venture will likely be releasing a crypto funds processor in addition to a debit card. The venture’s account additionally teased that YZY and USDC funds can be accepted within the Yeezy digital clothes retailer. Regardless of this, the token has continued to sag to a $75 million market cap.

Ye had been flirting with the potential for releasing a token for half a yr, which spawned two meme coin communities that had been adamant he would quickly endorse their venture. On YZY’s launch, the communities needed to come to phrases with the probability that their dream wouldn’t come to fruition.

“Yo WTF is occurring? Are we nonetheless alive?” one consumer wrote within the token’s Telegram group. “They emotionally harvested us for six months. Bye,” responded.