UFC fighter Khamzat Chimaev’s manager, Majdi Shammas, clarified that Chimaev had no involvement with the SMASH memecoin and had little knowledge about it, according to a post on July 7. Shammas explained that he decided to promote the coin without consulting the fighter after being approached by a group claiming to be Chimaev’s fans.
This statement comes after ZachXBT, an investigator, accused the SMASH development team of purchasing 78% of the coin’s supply, suggesting a potential pump-and-dump scheme. It’s important to note that SMASH is a distinct project from SmashCash, a privacy coin with the same ticker symbol.
In his post, Shammas expressed his apology to Chimaev and anyone affected by the situation, stating that he only allowed the SMASH team to create a short video promoting the coin’s launch, with no further involvement from Chimaev.
SMASH was launched on July 2 at 2 pm UTC. On the same day, between 6 pm and 10 pm, the price surged from $0.0001147 to $0.007308, marking a staggering gain of 6,271%. However, it quickly plummeted by 94% the following day, reaching $0.0004209 by 8 pm UTC on July 3, according to data from DEXScreener.
ZachXBT, the blockchain investigator, disclosed the findings of his investigation on July 4, revealing that over 78% of the coin’s supply had been purchased by wallets associated with insiders and the development team during the launch. This type of activity often indicates an intention to sell the tokens at a later time for profit, causing the price to crash. ZachXBT admitted to not tracing the tokens’ final destination sales, as he stopped tracking after the initial purchases.
On July 8, ZachXBT responded to Shammas’ apology, arguing that Chimaev’s management team did more than just allow a promotional video. According to the investigator, Chimaev made two separate posts about the coin before they were deleted, contradicting Shammas’ claim of minimal involvement.
The SMASH memecoin is the latest in a series of celebrity-backed memecoins that have faced allegations of being pump-and-dump scams. For instance, rapper Sexyy Red’s PRESI project was criticized for allegedly purchasing 90% of the coin’s supply at launch on July 2. Similarly, Andrew Tate’s DADDY project was accused of buying up 30% of the supply at launch on June 13.
As the crypto market continues to evolve, the question of whether celebrity tokens are beneficial or detrimental to Web3 remains a topic of debate.