From hype-fueled moonshots to outright scams, celebrity-backed cryptocurrencies have sparked a lot of excitement and controversy this cycle. It’s not that celebrity coins are new, but they have certainly become even more widespread and damaging to the cryptocurrency space.
These celebrity coins have led to extensive value traction and caused a liquidity collapse across the crypto industry. They have left the market all dry and dilapidated, and as a result, the cryptocurrency market is currently feeling great exhaustion, with sentiments turning sour.
While Bitcoin is still strong at around $95,000, only about 12% away from its all-time high (ATH) of $109K, altcoins have taken a severe hit. Meanwhile, meme coins and celebrity coins have simply been obliterated this past year.
But before we look into prominent celebrity projects that have caused chaos, let’s first get into it.
What are celebrity coins?
Celebrity coins, the latest trend that has captivated all the attention and capital, are digital assets backed by a celebrity.
Much like meme coins, they have no intrinsic value. While meme coins are the digital representation of popular Internet jokes, characters, animals, images, and catchy phrases, celebrity coins bear the name of the “so-called” celebrity launching the coin.
These celebrity coins are issued on various blockchain platforms such as Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain, but this time around, it’s Solana that has been leading this mania.
This faster and cheaper layer 1 has been gaining a lot of traction this bull run, helping SOL rally from sub-$10 in Nov. 2022 to a peak above $293 in Jan. 2025. However, it has lost 46% of its value since then as the market voices its anger towards the rising scams, rug pulls, and pumps and dumps dominating the chain.
Interestingly, ETH is also down 45% from its ATH of $4,880, but that was three years ago during the last cycle. Just as Ethereum dominated the initial coin offerings (ICOs) in 2017 and then DeFi mania along with BSC last cycle, Solana has dominated this bull run with meme coins and celebrity coins through Pump.fun.
This platform allows anyone to launch a coin in one click and for a few dollars while having the token instantly tradeable without having to seed liquidity. This accessibility has led to the launch of more than 8 million tokens on Pump.fun since the platform was launched in Jan. 2024. Since March, the platform has also earned almost 3 million SOL in fees, all of which have gone to Pump.fun and none to the community.
All the celebrity coins covered today are also deployed through Pump.fun, demonstrating the critical role the token-generating factory and Solana have played in all the good, bad, and ugly aspects of the market this past year.
So, with that, let’s take a look at the most prominent celebrity-backed tokens that stirred up intense debates, lawsuits, and wild market swings.
Caitlyn Jenner ($JENNER)
The meme coin mania was ignited by Pepe’s blockbuster launch in 2023 and continued to gain traction as the crypto market gained increased attention following the Spot Bitcoin ETF launch. While sentiments were running high and prices flying even higher, a frenzy took place that saw new coins popping up by thousands every day.
Such bullish momentum tends to attract ‘tourists’ and washed-up celebrities who are here only for the good time — to make easy money. This is exactly what happened when Olympic gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner launched her JENNER token on the Solana blockchain, marking the beginning of a new trend.
On May 26th, 2024, the American celebrity used Pump.fun to launch JENNER, which was then listed on the DEX Radium. A few days later, she introduced JENNER to the Ethereum blockchain and even pledged some of the revenue to support Donald Trump’s re-election bid.
Jenner actively promoted the token on her social media to boost its value. “We love crypto!” she tweeted at the time. “Make america great again!!!” wrote the former athlete on X. For the link to the first celebrity meme coin, $JENER, she even attached a photo of herself shaking hands with Trump.
The crypto community was instantly suspicious of hacking, though that didn’t stop them from buying the coin. So, Jenner went to X to confirm that she had, in fact, “not been hacked.” Along came a video from her manager, Sophia Hutchins, who further assured that “her account has not been hacked. You can rest assured her crypto is definitely performing extraordinarily well.”
The initial social media buzz and speculation quickly sent the token’s market cap above $46 million, and its price was as high as $0.00782 on June 2nd. But, of course, it didn’t take long for the token to crash. Within days, it tanked 65%.
As of this writing, JENNER has a market cap of a mere $70K while its price is trading at $0.00006768, down more than 99% from its peak.
$JENNER was nothing more than an organized pump-and-dump scam right from the beginning. For starters, shortly after the coin’s launch, a huge portion of the coin supply was dumped on the market, further proving that it was a scam.
On-chain analysts noted that the wallet used for the JENNER coin was also involved in the launch of several other celebrity tokens. The wallet was traced to Dubai-based Sahil Arora, who allegedly scammed $30 million using celebrity tokens. For this, his process involved offering celebrities large payments to post the token’s contract address on X and then using their massive social media following to drive up the token prices. Using the very same JENNER deployer wallet, he most recently created a token for the dog posted by the Binance founder and dumped it on buyers.
Jenner is currently facing a class-action lawsuit from disgruntled investors, alleging she fraudulently sold the token as an unregistered security and misled them into buying a failing cryptocurrency.
Mother Iggy ($MOTHER)
Emboldened by Jenner’s move and not wanting to miss out on her own fun and gains, Australian rapper Iggy Azalea launched the $MOTHER token.
While the rumor was that this was another scam orchestrated by Arora, who claimed collaboration with Azalea, she clarified that MOTHER was a solo effort and maintained her distance from the alleged scammer. On being asked if she has been in contact with Arora, she replied, “I was in contact enough to smell he’s a bitch.”
The next day, on May 28th, Azalea launched Solana-based MOTHER and actively promoted her celebrity meme coin, which saw a rocky start but soon surged in value. “Don’t disappoint your mother,” she wrote on X and urged her fans to buy her token.
The coin, however, showed “huge insider activity,” with blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps noting that one insider sold about 10% of the coin’s total supply of 1 billion, netting them $1.4 million in profits and sitting on more unrealized profits at the time.
The former Grammy-nominated performer denied any involvement in the rug pull, saying that she owned only 3% of her own coin. She blamed unnamed “randoms” for having “ultimate control of if the token lives or dies.”
Still, bolstered by Azalea’s social media promotion as well as support from influencers, the token hit an ATH of $0.2306 on June 6th. Since hitting its peak, the token has lost 96.6% of its value. And as of writing, the $7.78 million market cap MOTHER token is trading at $0.0077 while recording $2.8 million in trading volume in the past 24 hours.
While the token price continued to tank, Azalea worked with Joe McCann, founder of the crypto investing firm Asymmetric, to boost her token’s utility. For this, she supported the purchase of phones and monthly cell plans using MOTHER tokens through a telecommunications company she is relaunching.
In Sept., she also announced the upcoming launch of an online casino called “Motherland,” which she said would only accept her celebrity token as currency. The casino is currently live, featuring slots, blackjack, roulette, poker, live dealer games, tournaments, and sports betting. “Motherland is a perfect example of how Iggy is taking the token beyond speculation and into real-world applications,” said McCann, adding, “$MOTHER provides sustainable value creation by offering real utility.”
Not only did Azalea launch the casino as promised, but she remains active on her social media even today and continues to promote her token, unlike other celebrities.
Hawk Tuah ($HAWK)
As others joined in, from Rich the Kid, Lil Pump, Cardi B, Waka Flocka Flame, Sean Kingston, Davido, and Jason Derulo to Andrew Tate, Haliey Welch — better known as Hawk Tuah Girl, couldn’t resist her own share of easy money.
The 22-year-old first went viral last summer following a street interview, and using her fame, she sold merchandise and started her podcast called “Talk Tuah.” Then, late last year, she launched the $HAWK token, which ballooned to a market cap of $490 million.
However, this celebrity token didn’t even last a day in the market, and within hours, it crashed just as hard. After a small group of wallets sold over 80% of the token supply, the token’s value plunged by 90%.
The crash cost many their “whole life savings,” with people calling it a “rug pull” and a “pump-and-dump” scam. “My $35,000 that I purchased of $HAWK is now $2,000 after 10 minutes of buying,” one trader wrote on X. “I am a huge fan of Hawk Tuah, but you took my life savings.”
Some investors accused Welch of pulling an exit scam and threatened to take legal action against her. However, Welch and the $HAWK team have denied any wrongdoing, though on-chain data suggests something else. As per the data, a vast majority of the coin supply (97%) was actually controlled by only ten wallets, and just 3% was available for public sale. Those who joined in the presale also sold over half of their tokens right away, pocketing an estimated $3 million.
According to a Rolling Stone article, Welch received an up-front payment of $125,000 to promote the coin along with 50% of net trading proceeds. She also owned 10% of the $HAWK, but they could only be sold after a year.
A lawsuit has actually been filed, though Welch is not named as a defendant. Since its filing, Welch has been keeping her distance from the situation and said on X that she’s committed to “assisting the legal team representing the individuals impacted, as well as to help uncover the truth, hold the responsible parties accountable, and resolve this matter.”
Official Trump ($TRUMP)
While celebrity coins have been fast piling up, the trend reached a crescendo this year with the TRUMP token. So, 2025 began with not only Bitcoin prices soaring thanks to Trump winning the election on the back of his many promises to the crypto sector but also an even bigger surprise from him just days before his inauguration as the 47th US President.
While several Trump-related coins were already circulating in the market, the President himself joined the party this time. This wasn’t even Trump’s first foray into crypto; he had previously launched NFTs. Interestingly, much like how he devalued his NFT line by launching yet another one, things took a turn for the worse for the TRUMP coin when the MELANIA coin was also launched, negatively affecting the prices of both tokens.
Trump’s token started on an extremely bullish note, with its market cap soaring above $10 billion as people dumped their altcoins and meme coins to pile into TRUMP. But TRUMP’s value suffered an instant 58% drop after MELANIA’s launch.
While some praised the move, calling it a new paradigm for crypto, others criticized it, seeing it marking the top of the bull market. Ever since then, the crypto market has been experiencing a drawdown, while Bitcoin has been mainly trading sideways. As for TRUMP, the $2.9 billion market cap coin is currently trading at $14.90, down 79.6% from its $73.43 peak on January 19th.
As for its tokenomics, it’s exactly what you would expect from such an offering — 80% of the supply is owned by CIC Digital, an affiliate of Trump’s business, and another entity called Fight, Fight, Fight.
Trump didn’t just launch a token; his separate crypto project, World Liberty Financial, also completed an initial token sale, raising $300 million. Despite the negative impact of Trump’s token on the crypto market, the sector expects his presidency to be good for the industry through regulatory clarity and a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
Click here to learn all about investing in Official Trump token ($TRUMP).
Libra ($LIBRA)
While meme coins from the US President sucked all the liquidity from the market, LIBRA caused damage to not only prices but also the industry’s reputation. This one came with the backing of Argentina’s President Javier Milei.
A couple of weeks ago, President Milei posted to his 3.8 million followers that he supports the Solana meme coin LIBRA. Milei wrote the following in his post on February 14th:
“This private project will be dedicated to encouraging the growth of the Argentine economy by funding small Argentine businesses and startups. The world wants to invest in Argentina.”
While traders second-guessed the legitimacy of the launch, wondering if his social media account had been hacked, Milei confirmed to Bloomberg that he had indeed shared the LIBRA token launch but that the coin was not his. As people rushed in to buy the coin, LIBRA’s market cap was sent to about $4.5 billion.
Amidst this, on-chain analysts raised concerns around the launch, with Chainalysis noting that a large portion of LIBRA’s supply is controlled by those who created it. Bubblemaps also flagged issues, revealing that 82% of its supply was immediately sellable.
Soon after, President Milei deleted his promotion post, claiming that he wasn’t aware of the details of the project before sharing it.
“To the filthy rats of the political caste who want to take advantage of this situation to do harm. I want to say that every day they confirm just how despicable politicians are, and it only strengthens our resolve to kick their asses.”
– President Milei
However, the damage was already done, the price of the token had already lost a substantial value. Even before his retraction, the coin had lost 89% of its value within a few hours of his initial post and now continues to make fresh lows every day. According to CoinGecko, the $41 million market cap LIBRA is currently trading at $0.159 while managing less than $7.5 million in daily trading volume.
As usual, during this crash, the majority of traders collectively lost tens of millions of dollars while a handful made all the profits. But the situation didn’t just end here.
Over the last ten days, new things have come to light. In a strange twist of events, key players behind the project bragged about buying access to Milei’s inner circle and being in the know about the coin’s launch. Kelsier Ventures CEO Hayden Davis, who was behind the coin launch, meanwhile claimed in an interview that the token is “not a rug pull” but rather a “plan gone miserably wrong with $100 million sitting in an account that I’m the custodian of.”
Meanwhile, opposition leaders in Argentina have threatened to call for an impeachment trial with Milei facing a corruption probe over the incident, which even weighed on the country’s stock market.
Hype Fades, But Losses Last – Choose Wisely
These celebrity tokens were some of the most market-shaking launches, leading to a handful of people making the majority of profits while the vast majority have ended up with losses.
While these launches have been shocking to the system, celebrity-linked projects aren’t new. They’ve been present in every bull cycle, and when the euphoria ends, some of the perpetrators will have to pay the price. In the past, celebrities have had to pay fines to settle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), so it may not be long before the regulator comes looking for them again.
It has already started this time, with investigations ongoing. Most recently, the SEC announced the creation of its Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit (CETU), consisting of 30 fraud specialists to tackle crypto cyber crimes as a complementary body to the crypto task force.
As scams, rug pulls, and pump-and-dump schemes intensify, regulators are likely to increase their scrutiny and implement measures. That said, it’s critical for crypto market participants to take responsibility by saying no to these tokens, being cautious, and not blindly following celebrity endorsements.
In this digital age, as hyper-financialization occurs, the allure of quick profits can be tempting. However, history has shown that most investors end up holding worthless tokens while influencers and insiders cash out. So, be educated, do your due diligence, and focus on long-term wealth creation!
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