Did Hulk Hogan Engage in Pump and Dump of a Solana Meme Coin?
Wrestling legend Hulk Hogan is alleged to have promoted a Solana-based meme coin named HULKAMANIA (HULK) online and then deleted the posts, leading to a decline in the token’s market value.
The meme coin’s market capitalization dropped from $17 million to $2 million in a matter of minutes.
Hulk Hogan Denies Promotional Posts
As reported by Step Finance’s social media account, Solana Floor, the market capitalization of the HULK meme coin plummeted from $17 million to $2 million within minutes following Hogan’s purported removal of promotional posts.
Hulk Hogan’s social media accounts & website promoted a $HULK crypto token today, jumping on the recent celeb memecoin trend
it pumped big, millions of dollars, & then dumped
all the posts are now deleted. there’s a new post now claiming that the posts were not from him pic.twitter.com/hDuYVLgNQu
— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) June 6, 2024
Screenshots circulated on the social media platform X allegedly depict comments from Hogan’s account endorsing the HULK meme coin. Nonetheless, Hogan, also known as Terry Gene Bollea, has refuted the authorship of these posts. In a June 5 Instagram update, he clarified, “Please do not take notice of any posts posted today. They are not from me and will be promptly removed.”
Celebrity Meme Coins Craze
Meme coins have become increasingly popular and are now easy to launch, with nearly half a million Solana tokens created in May alone. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has expressed his dissatisfaction with the trend of celebrity-endorsed meme coins, stating he is “quite unhappy” with the experimentation.
Over the past few weeks, several celebrities, including Olympian Caitlyn Jenner, rappers Rich The Kid and Iggy Azalea, and Nigerian musician Davido, have launched their own meme coins.
Most of these tokens have seen significant declines in value post-launch. For instance, JENNER has fallen by 75.0% from its all-time high, and Timeless Davido (DAVIDO) has dropped by 68.2% from its all-time high.
However, not all celebrity-endorsed tokens have met the same fate. Iggy Azalea’s token, MOTHER, recently hit an all-time high, reaching a market cap of $134 million on June 6. This is after Azalea vowed to clean up her token, which has contributed to its relative success.
In a March article, Buterin outlined what he believes are essential features for meme coins to be considered honorable and respectable. He suggested that beyond enriching early adopters and celebrities, such projects could have public-good goals linked to art projects or charities, be designed to last at least a decade, and include engaging mechanics like token voting and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).
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