Iggy Azalea’s Meme Coin Launch Marred by $2 Million Insider Trading Allegations (2024)

Following Caitlyn Jenner’s controversial meme coin launch, Sahil Arora, the “middleman” accused of scamming Jenner and rapper Rich the Kid, has targeted Australian rapper Iggy Azalea.

Arora suggested his next celebrity collaboration for launching a meme coin would be with Azalea, utilizing Solana’s meme coin launchpad, pump.fun.

Inside Iggy Azalea’s Meme Coin Controversy

In his Telegram group, he shared an address and encouraged members to send Solana (SOL) to participate in a presale for a new token named IGGY. He initially opened the presale to 100 wallets but increased the limit to 700 and then to 1,000.

The presale wallet has amassed over $380,000 in cryptocurrency. However, investors claimed that they had yet to receive their tokens.

During its debut, IGGY showed a strong performance. According to data from DEX Screener, it quickly reached a market capitalization of approximately $3 million. Yet, at the time of writing, IGGY is now trading at $0.00003907, with the market capitalization slumped to $39,000.

Read more: Crypto Social Media Scams: How to Stay Safe

After Arora’s announcement, Azalea declared on her X (Twitter) account that she launched her own meme coin, Mother Iggy (MOTHER), with the token address. She clarified that she independently launched MOTHER, urging her followers not to trust false claims about her involvement with Arora.

“Don’t disappoint your mother. Also don’t believe the bullsh*t, fake screenshots, and all the rest. I know you all are smarter than that. No one is working with me. I can’t say it enough. Not true. Sahil, baby, take your L and go already,” Azalea stated in her post.

Compared to IGGY, MOTHER had a stronger debut. It reached a market capitalization of $18.2 million. DEX Screener data reveals that MOTHER is now trading at $0.008633, with its market capitalization halved to $9.2 million.

Azalea admitted in an X Space discussion that no one had “really onboarded” her to the crypto industry. She claimed her brother, Mathias ‘Matt’ Kelly, helped her launch the token.

“Matt just likes crypto and honestly, [he] just doesn’t shut up about any type of technology or new thing. Meme coin involves so much more sh*tposting and memeing and stuff that I really like, like that kind of culture of the internet,” she explained.

Furthermore, Azalea outlined her plans to build trust and integrity in the crypto community. She aims to distinguish herself from other controversial celebrity tokens.

“Every time they start rugging, I just want to burn some of mine because I’m a celebrity in the space, and I know I’m going to get hated on for being here. So I’m just going to burn some every time someone comes that’s a celebrity and it’s looking like it’s clearly a rug. I’m just gonna burn,” she affirmed.

Insider Trading Allegations Hit Iggy Azalea’s Meme Coin

Despite Azalea’s efforts, blockchain data provider Bubblemaps discovered “huge insider activity” in the MOTHER meme coin. Insiders bought 20% of the supply at launch before Azalea announced and have since dumped tokens worth $2 million.

According to Bubblemaps, wallet address JEEt3D1dZynWcgEcpPCNP2FvSbydHJiyfurU6QKVDVMH bought 109 trillion MOTHER, equal to 10% of the supply. The wallet then splits those tokens into seven wallets.

“Out of these, 89 trillion tokens have been sold. Realized profit and loss: $1.4 million. Unrealized profit and loss: $400,000,” Bubblemaps noted.

The wallet sent SOL to highly profitable wallets that made significant returns on MOTHER. These include DbT9xdKUD7jghNDmvhfmiCxenhusbAMzR5PKdx2qk4Cx, 3nsX9zGLyk9hVskckHAznMtcKxm4UCN51RXsht5CmX2c, and 4YozmZV6mmNCBZavNZRHj9jD7mD46X2CHHhasYXVtGkJ. These wallets reportedly made approximately $800,000 by selling 8% of the token supply.

In addition to the discoveries made by Bubblemaps, when on-chain investigator Coffeezilla questioned Arora regarding the recent accusations made by Jenner, Azalea, and Rich the Kid, Arora confessed that the entire situation was “all orchestrated.” He further accused Rich the Kid of exploiting him for publicity by making false allegations of hacking and scams.

“This meta was started by me. They wouldn’t have clocked any of that if I didn’t back them up. Period,” Arora told Coffeezilla in an Instagram message.

Davido’s Meme Coin Exit Raises Eyebrows

In a related development, American-born Nigerian singer Davido launched a meme coin named after himself. On-chain tracker platform Lookonchain reported that Davido created the token on Wednesday using pump.fun. He received 7.5 SOL (approximately $1,275) as initial capital and spent 7 SOL ($1,190) to buy 203 million DAVIDO, equaling 20.3% of the total supply.

Several hours after creating and promoting the meme coin on his social media, Davido cashed out 121.88 million DAVIDO for 2,791 SOL, generating roughly $474,400. This transaction led to speculation that Davido made this token solely for pump and dump.

In response to the trend of celebrity meme coins, Wale Moca, a researcher at Azuki, examined past celebrity-owned and celebrity-promoted crypto projects. According to Moca, they all failed, with most being scams. This pattern raises concerns about the sustainability and integrity of such ventures.

“At the end of the day, these projects usually fail because the individuals behind them just don’t care. Either they get a bag for promoting and posting a video or their team coordinates a sale. In most cases, there is no real interest or plan for the project. […] I would be surprised if any of the celebrities that promoted them even know what’s going on,” Moca explained.

Read more: Crypto Scam Projects: How To Spot Fake Tokens

Regulatory bodies have previously taken action against misleading crypto promotions. In October 2022, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Kim Kardashian for promoting EthereumMAX (EMAX) as crypto asset security without disclosing her financial compensation. Kardashian settled the charges by paying $1.26 million in penalties and cooperating with the ongoing investigation.