Memecoins
Did Hulk Hogan Really Pump and Dump a Solana Meme Room?
A week after celebrities Caitlyn Jenner And Iggy Azalea launched buzzy coins, it seemed legendary professional wrestler Hulk Hogan did much the same thing on Thursday with the HULK token on Solana.
But after the coin was quickly “hardened” at the expense of investors, Hogan took to Instagram to urge fans to ignore any crypto posts coming from his Twitter account.
“Please disregard the messages posted today,” Hogan shared on Instagram. “They are not from me and will be promptly deleted.”
Indeed, there is no sign of the alleged crypto scam on Hogan’s official Twitter account. In fact, there is nothing left on his news feed: everything has been deleted.
It’s not immediately clear whether Hogan’s Twitter account was hacked to share an elaborate crypto scheme – as we’ve seen in the past with other celebrities and public figures – or if perhaps someone connected to Hogan and the account had used him maliciously.
The website URL on Hogan’s otherwise empty Twitter profile still points to a website created for the token, and a quick search of its name reveals the wreckage left in the crypto community Thursday.
Hogan’s account had shared dozens of posts about the HULK meme coin, including tweet about Iggy Azalea about his play. The account also shared an apparent video endorsement of the piece, but the reporter Matt Binder tweeted that it is actually taken from an unrelated 2023 video about a karaoke competition and does not specifically mention cryptocurrency.
According to on-chain data from DexScreener, the HULK token quickly skyrocketed to a market cap of nearly $19 million. This was before the price plunged rapidly, apparently due to who initially deployed the token. sell large quantities-A crypto “rug pull” on buyers – or a classic pump and dump, for that matter.
HULK now has a market cap of just $3 million, down about 85% from the short-lived peak, with trading volume of about $82 million in just a few hours. Traders have taken to Twitter to complain of feeling misled by the legend, although this apparent dismay, in some cases, may be mitigated by a glimmer of nostalgia.
“Man LMFAO, I was Hulk Hogan’s biggest fan growing up…I literally watched wrestling on the electronics store TV from outside every week” tweeted merchant and influencer pseudonym Wizard of SoHo. “If I could tell my 8 year old self that one day Hulk Hogan would rip me off for 20,000… holy shit LMFAO.”
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.