A spree of fake tokens inspired by soccer icon Cristiano Ronaldo cropped up over the weekend, thanks to rumors he was about to release a meme coin. But they don’t appear to be more than rumors as Decrypt could not find any credible sources on the matter.
One of the tokens reached a $143 million market cap before crashing 98%—all in just 15 minutes.
The CR7 token, based on the athlete’s nickname, appears to have been promoted by several influencers. But most of them have already deleted their posts. On-chain analyst firm Bubblemaps believes the fake meme coin was likely an organized group effort.
“It is likely that after Kanye West launched YZY, some influencers jumped onto the wave and claimed Cristiano Ronaldo would launch a token too, using their accounts,” pseudonymous Bubblemaps sleuth 0xToolman told Decrypt. “Then they launched an unendorsed token and posted the contract address, luring investors in, only to rug pull shortly after.”
Many of the rumors cling to Ronaldo’s partnership with Binance, which started in 2022 and has seen the release of four NFT collections. However, most fake tokens that launched were found on Solana, with at least five other seemingly fake CR7 meme coins launching on the network—all of which failed to break past a $1 million market capitalization.
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It was only the influencer-pushed token that made any waves, soaring to a $143.18 million market cap in just six minutes. But the buzz was fleeting. The token crashed 98% over the next nine minutes, according to DEX Screener. The price drop came as a result of a series of quick sales by several addresses, Bubblemaps told Decrypt.
There have been no social media posts from Ronaldo regarding any plans for an official token, outside of the released Binance NFTs.
The launch follows Ye, formerly Kanye West, launching his own official token after half a year of speculation. YZY hit a $411.23 million market cap an hour after it was announced, per DEX Screener, before plummeting 74% to $105 million over the next 24 hours.