Recently, professional football players Lionel Messi and Ronaldinho promoted a Solana-based meme coin called water to their Instagram followers on their Instagram accounts.
Messi's Instagram account may be hacked
Messi shared an image to his 504 million Instagram followers on Monday showing the token's mascot, a cartoon water glass, perched on his shoulder and linking to the project's Instagram page.
Within two hours of the post, WATER jumped from $0.00032 to $0.00146, a surge of 356%.
Soon, users expressed their concerns and concerns about the post. Many are speculating that Messi is the new victim of hackers.
Crypto hackers have frequently targeted the social media accounts of public figures in recent times, seeking to profit from their influence.
After a brief price surge, WATER has since retreated, sitting just above $0.0008 at the time of writing, down 10% in the past 24 hours. The token has a market capitalization of approximately $72 million, with a 24-hour trading volume of just over $12 million.
At present, Messi's Instagram account has deleted the post, but the relevant team has not given an explanation or response.
The team behind Water is a notorious fraud gang
The team behind WATER is the notorious "German Prince" trading team that defrauded the meme currency BEER.
BEER token is a beer-themed MEME token. The pre-sale reached 30,000 SOL on May 20, worth nearly US$5 million. After the launch, the price of BEER tokens has soared, with a maximum increase of 30 times, and a market value of up to 500 million US dollars. The current BEER token price has hit rock bottom.
Influential public figures frequently launch endorsement meme coins
Several celebrities, including media personality Caitlyn Jenner and rapper Iggy Azalea, cashed in on meme coin season earlier this year, minting tokens on the Solana blockchain. currency. The campaigns have been met with accusations that they are an attempt to make a quick buck from unsuspecting followers.
As a result, Messi’s post was met with skepticism by some commentators in the crypto community. Analyst @ericonomics wrote on X, "They may pull soon, so do yourself a favor and don't buy that one!"
"Third coin scam promoted by Messi," he wrote. “The first was Leafty, which was a rug (they removed liquidity like 5 days later, haha). The second was Planet, a slow rug that was down 90% straight after that sale.”
Be wary of meme coins endorsed by public figures
Coinlive hereby reminds users to be vigilant and not to extend their enthusiasm for public figures to the cryptocurrency market.
Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin has previously called for better meme projects and outlined social good as the ultimate goal.