According to data from Blockchain data provider Bubblemaps, celebrity meme coin mogul Sahil Arora made over $30 million from launching a series of celebrity meme coins on Solana.
The Dubai-based investor and influencer is notorious for his involvement in pump-and-dump scams using the Solana-based platform Pump. Fun.
In light of his questionable business practices, the X platform suspended his account in June for posting fabricated conversation screenshots with Australian musician Iggy Azalea, and for promoting questionable celebrity memecoins.
Bubblemaps’ report revealed that he persisted in promoting questionable celebrity meme coins, with his 2024 earnings from recent projects linked to pump-and-dump allegations made public.
ZachXBT Reports Sahil Arora Made $3 Million
Contrary to Bubblemaps, crypto detective ZachXBT reported that Sahil made only $3 million in 2024 from launching celebrity meme coins. In an X post, the blockchain sleuth stated that Bubblemaps miscalculated Sahil’s 2024 earnings to be $30m rather than $3m.
Sorry the math for this seems incorrect there is no way Sahil made $26M check the liquidity on these coins.
Would estimate he made <$5M at most and likely only $2-3M.
The Celeb meta also died off extremely quickly. pic.twitter.com/cFzMSVLLRg
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) August 14, 2024
In a follow-up post, ZachXBT identified the root cause of Bumblemaps’ error, explaining the misconceptions that resulted in their flawed conclusion. He said, “Ya I found the issue with your investigation @bubblemaps you counted this address (referring to an address he added in his post) as Sahil’s when in reality it is an exchange hot wallet for Poloniex.”
Ethereum’s Founder Criticizes Celebrity-Backed Meme Coins
In light of the increasing prevalence of celebrity-backed meme coins, many of which have subsequently failed or been revealed as scams, Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s founder, has publicly criticized meme coins launched or endorsed by celebrities in the crypto space.
Buterin’s comments reflect his dismay at the speculative nature of these projects, which he termed as ‘experimentations’ as most of them end up causing harm to investors and the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Recently, an X user, Slorg, listed about 30 celebrity projects launched on the Solana network that ended up as failures. For instance, the list included Andrew Tate’s DADDY, Iggy Azalea’s MOTHER, DAVIDO token, etc
