The crypto ecosystem has seen a surge in memecoins and their popularity over the past year. Still, the craze has ushered in a wave of scams and rug pulls targeting unsuspecting investors. The latest victim of this trend is the Solana-based GRIMACE coin, which was the subject of a rug pull. GRIMACE Surges 400% After McDonald’s Instagram Hack The incident began when hackers accessed the official McDonald’s Instagram account and used the platform to promote the GRIMACE token. The hackers spread misinformation, falsely claiming that McDonald’s had issued the GRIMACE memecoin on the Solana blockchain. Related Reading: Here’s What’s Going On With The Shiba Inu Price This had the desired effect, as investors rapidly piled into the GRIMACE token, driving its market capitalization from a modest $500,000 to a substantial $25 million in 30 minutes. At its peak, the token’s price skyrocketed by nearly 400%, reaching $0.02500 from an initial value of just $0.0005110. However, the euphoria was short-lived. After the token’s rise, the anonymous developers behind GRIMACE executed a classic rug pull, abruptly abandoning the project and absconding with over $700,000 in investor funds. The hackers even posted a message on the McDonald’s Instagram bio, brazenly stating, “Thank you for the $700,000 in Solana.” Solana Price Analysis On the other hand, the Solana price has been relatively stable since Monday, trading within a newly formed range between $138 and $142 after recovering from the drop at the beginning of the month toward the $109 level, which was the lowest point since March this year. Over the past 24 hours, SOL has recorded almost no changes compared to Tuesday’s price, experiencing a slight 0.9% drop despite Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) surging nearly 3% and 2%, respectively. This lack of price movement suggests little demand for the fifth-largest cryptocurrency in the market over the past week, further evidenced by a 14% drop in trading volume to $2.2 million in the last 48 hours, according to CoinGecko data. Related Reading: Tron Rises 24% Amid New Developments – Will The Uptrend Continue? The consolidation in Solana’s price is also concerning for bullish investors, as the token has failed to overcome its key technical indicators. Currently trading at $142, SOL has not breached its 50-day and 200-day exponential moving averages (EMAs), which are positioned at $143 and $151, respectively. Overcoming these levels would be crucial for sustained price recovery and provide important support floors in the event of potential corrections. However, it is worth noting that after the broader cryptocurrency market crash on August 5, SOL found significant support at the $129 level, representing a critical near-term defense for Solana’s price action. Featured image from DALL-E, chart is from TradingView.com
The ongoing frenzy over memecoins created on top blockchains over the past year has found a notable competitor in the Solana-based marketplace Pump.fun, a crypto project reminiscent of the anonymous social media platform on the Ethereum blockchain 4chan. Over One Million Memecoins Created In 7 Months According to a Bloomberg report, since its launch in […]
Water Coin spiked nearly 40% one hour after Ronaldinho mentioned it in an Instagram post, but it has since settled below its pre-pump price.
Over the weekend, a crypto trader turned 70 SOL into $3 million with a Solana-based token. However, the investor’s success story was overshadowed by the controversial launch of the memecoin that made it possible. Related Reading: Avalanche (AVAX) Price Rallies: Can It Break Through the $30 Barrier? Trader Makes $3 Million In Minutes A crypto trader made millions in 30 minutes after investing $9,923 in Solana-based memecoin BAKED. Lookonchain reported that a sniper spent 70 SOL to buy 81.78 million BAKED. 30 minutes later, the trader sold his holdings for 21,581 SOL, worth around $3.06 million, in 76 transactions. The feat was achieved by a seemingly “lucky” trader who previously invested and lost money in other Solana memecoins. The on-chain analysis platform concluded that the investor was likely not an insider as it had bought the tokens from Raydium’s pool instead of the Degen Fund. However, Lookonchain revealed that BAKED’s team and insiders hold over 70% of the supply. Per the report, the dev wallet spent 11.82 SOL to buy 300.72 million BAKED from the Degen Fund, where the token was launched. The wallet bought the Solana memecoin “while minting tokens and 206.9M $BAKED was added to liquidity.” 19 wallets snatched up the remaining 492.37 million tokens in one second. These wallets were created simultaneously with the dev wallet and were funded by Bitget. 15 out of 19 wallets withdrew SOL from Bitget three days ago and are suspected to be linked to BAKED’s team and insiders. As a result, 78% of the supply, worth around $15.6 million, was held by insider and dev-related wallets. The wallets spent 82.4 SOL, around $11,700, to buy 779.85 million BAKED before selling. At the time of Lookonchain’s report, the insiders had sold a small portion of their tokens and still held 76.36% of the supply. BAKED has plummeted by 58% in the last 24 hours, currently trading for $0.01260. Is The New Solana Token Launch Baked Or Burned? Crypto investors refuted the claims that the “lucky” sniper was not an insider and expressed discontent with the Solana memecoin launch. Additionally, users have called the BAKED token a scam due to an alleged lack of transparency. GUMMY investors were supposed to earn a 15% reward on BAKED tokens for staking their tokens on July 1. However, users reported they did not receive any reward after unstaking their holdings. According to Web3 Forensics, users successfully unstaked their GUMMY tokens but no investor had been able to get BAKED rewards by Monday morning. One investor considers the project’s team “held our $GUMMY hostage so we couldn’t profit off of the $BAKED launch.” Moreover, many users highlighted that GUMMY’s value has significantly decreased since they staked their holdings. Per the reports, every $1,000 staked in the token is now worth around $140. Many believe that the team behind the Solana-based tokens, including Crypto Banter’s founder Ran Neuner, used “every single investor or Community Member who trusted you.” On the official telegram group chat for the token, the team asked investors to “calm down” and “relax.” The team assured the project was not a scam and explained that none of them “got an early entry.” Moreover, the message stated that a higher price for the token meant a “better valuation for your gummy airdrop” and that the airdrop details would be announced soon. Related Reading: Bitcoin Price Blasts Past $63,000: Top 3 Reasons Ultimately, the launch didn’t receive a positive response. Several users stated they would “get away” from the GUMMY, BAKED, and Crypto Banter community as quickly as possible. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
Online payment company PayPal is set to integrate its PayPal USD stablecoin (PYUSD) into the Solana (SOL) blockchain, which is increasingly becoming the preferred choice for memecoin issuers. This move follows the successful launch of PYUSD on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain and its subsequent addition to PayPal’s Venmo peer-to-peer (P2P) payments service. According to Bloomberg, […]
Pump.fun said its smart contracts are safe and impacted users will receive “100% of the liquidity” that it previously had within the next 24 hours.
The cross-chain bridge announced an airdrop that saw over $800 million worth of its W tokens airdropped to select users, however, the event rapidly drew the attention of scammers.
It took 203 days for Coinbase's Base network to notch $1 billion in total value locked but only 25 days to reach $2 billion.
The developer behind the Slerf memecoin claims the snafu was due to a “mindless misclick,” but skeptics suggest the drama may have been a very daring marketing stunt.
On-chain data shows that about $528,000 has already been cashed out, while the remaining tokens worth about $1.5 million remain in the trader’s wallet.