Celebrity memecoin promoter Sahil Arora (@Habibi_Comm) was banned from the social media platform X after being accused by many, including Caitlyn Jenner and Iggy Azalea, of perpetrating “pump and dump” schemes amid the recent rise in celebrity-themed memecoins.
“He scammed us! BIG TIME!” Jenner wrote on X. The scam allegedly involved Arora acting as a middleman and launching the token on behalf of Jenner, having Jenner promote it, and then dumping tokens in his possession to withdraw liquidity, sending the price tumbling, which is a common risk in the memecoin market.
The token, JENNER, rose dramatically within 24 hours to reach a market cap of $43 million but fell sharply. As of publication time, the token had a market cap of around $5 million, according to data from Dexscreener.
American rapper Rich the Kid also took to X to claim his account was “hacked” to promote a coin “by Sahil” and “made a pump and dump and dumped all the money to his account and blocked me,” the rapper posted.
In another incident, Arora allegedly posted fake screenshots implicating his involvement in launching a memecoin dubbed IGGY for Australian rapper Iggy Azalea. Azalea instead released her own token, MOTHER, and called out Arora in a series of tweets.
“don’t believe the bullsh*t fake screen shots n all the rest… Sahil baby take your L and go already,” Azalea said.
The Block reached out to another X account, @sahilbuilds, shared by Arora’s Instagram and Telegram page for comment on the allegations and his account being banned.
“[T]hey hate what they can’t create, they try everyday to shut me down but nothing will really make me quit. this just powers me up more to do crazy and epic sh*t and i have a lot more big moves incoming to shake the space,” the account wrote in response to a direct message on X.
When asked if the claims made by Jenner were false, they replied: “Yes. She wouldn’t be here in the first place if I didn’t get her on and deployed Jenner.”
As the barriers to entry continue to shrink, the memecoin market has exploded in recent months, with nearly half a million tokens being created on Solana in the month of May alone according to data compiled by The Block Pro. Unfortunately, bad actors and scammers are also a part of the memecoin landscape.
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