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Buyers of Fake Iggy Azalea Tokens Await Refunds as Celebrity Handler Sahil Looks to Cash Out
Celebrity known cryptocurrency promoter Sahil Arora raised $380,000 in pre-sale funding for a token it claimed to be Iggy’s Azaleaofficial cryptocurrency of. More than a month later, the funds have started to leave the wallet, but participants continue to complain that they have not received any tokens.
“I sent him 5 SOL ($670) from two different wallets and he just kept them,” a pre-sale participant said Decipher“I put 3 SOL ($400), never got anything. I’m surprised no one is calling him about this,” another said.
When asked about the status of the presale funds and why the SOL raised was moved, Arora told Decrypt he is simply “shuffling” his wallets. But some of that SOL, worth about $100,000, has been moved to centralized exchanges, presumably to be sold. Arora said the presale buyers have “already been settled” and claims to the contrary mean we are not “tracking events” correctly.
But pre-sale attendees tell a different story.
Before Australian rapper Iggy Azalea dropped her actual token MOTHERArora claimed that he would launch a meme coin called IGGY through him.
Sahil had been on a hot streak of pitches celebrity tokens with people of the caliber of actress and Rich the Kid. Then, when he asked for a presale fund for the soon-to-be-launched IGGY token, his wallet quickly filled up with $380,000. A token “presale” is a common tactic among meme coin creators, often with disastrous consequences for these early buyers. Every now and then, however, early investors reap huge profits, hence the FOMO.
Arora launched his own IGGY token, which had limited success, peaking at just under $3 million in market cap after launch on Pump.fun—the on-chain meme coin factory that makes it easy for anyone to create their own token. Before her token could pump, Azalea sued Arora and launched her own official token MOTHERwhich reached a market cap of $26 million in 24 hours.
Still, $380,000 was in IGGY’s pre-sale wallet.
While the creator of the meme coin has drawn public attention to new initiativesthe wallet left the collective consciousness of cryptocurrencies. That’s when the funds started to move.
On June 8th the wallet was sent 663 SOL ($89,800) to a wallet starting with “8A9jAg”, which then sent a similar amount to Binancethe world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. This typically means that the cryptocurrency will be sold for a fiat currency, such as US dollars. Alongside this move, the pre-sale wallet sent 70 SOL ($9,485) a another wallet (E29zE9), which then sent 93 SOL ($12,500) on Binance.
Over the last month, the pre-sale wallet moved more than 2,296 SOL ($311,000). Some of these funds were moved to different wallets, some to intermediate wallets before being transferred to centralized exchangesand some Solana was used for launches new tokens on Pump.fun.
And yet, pre-sale participants have not yet received the airdropped IGGY tokens.
“I would like to see him deported from Dubai and jailed lol, but I don’t think that’s very believable,” said one pre-sale attendee. Decipher via Twitter DM, reflecting on their lack of airdrops. “No airdrops, no refunds,” they stressed.
Even if Arora finally decides to launch the tokens today, IGGIO has fallen nearly 98% from its all-time high, reached shortly after launch. The official token Azalea MOTHERon the other hand, it increased by more than 137% in the same period.
“I want my SOL refunded 100%,” another presale participant said when asked if they wanted to airdrop tokens at this point. “Back then, he was still willing to send a couple hundred thousand coins, now he’s lost all his reputation.”