Written by: Gyro Finance

If you pay a little attention to American variety shows, you should know the famous Kardashian family.

Whether it is the daily routine of three sisters slapping each other to show off their wealth and plastic surgery, or the speechless drama of their stepfather's gender reassignment and their mother's infidelity, the variety show "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" has become a very melodramatic and appetizing existence. And the people included in the Kardashian family have also become well-known Internet celebrities known to everyone.

And just recently, a member of the Kardashian family came to the crypto circle. During the two-day coin issuance experience, the crypto circle also deeply felt the crazy drama show in the sense of "Kardashian".

At 4 a.m. on May 27, Caitlyn Jenner, the stepfather of the Kardashian sisters, suddenly posted a photo of shaking hands with Trump on the X account, with the caption "make america great again!!! and we love crypto!", and attached a link to the $Jenner token on the token generation platform pump.fun under the tweet. At the same time, Caitlyn Jenner also uncharacteristically mentioned a series of senior crypto community meme players such as Ansem, Paul, and SolJakey to promote the token.

This stepfather is not an ordinary person. His original name is Bruce Jenner. He was a former American track and field Olympic athlete and won the Olympic decathlon championship. Later, he met Kim Kardashian's mother Kris Jenner in his second marriage and raised 5 children with her. Finally, at the age of 65, he completed the sex change operation and officially became Caitlyn Jenner. It can be said that Caitlyn is one of the most representative transgender people in American history. On the X platform, he has 3.36 million followers.

Because of its huge influence, the crypto community instantly took notice of the news. Just half an hour after it went online, the Jenner token soared 15 times. One hour later, the token had already increased 70 times, becoming the absolute star token on pump.fun.

On the other hand, although it is not uncommon for celebrities to issue tokens, due to the GCR hacking incident, and Caitlyn had never been in contact with the crypto community before, let alone being able to use pump.fun to generate tokens, some cautious people in the community believed that this was just another account hacking incident and called for rational purchases.

The facts seemed to confirm this frightening speculation. An hour later, the token developer suddenly sold 160 SOL tokens in the liquidity pool. Under the selling pressure, Jenner quickly cut the price in half. The community felt bad and cursed. Just when Jenner was running on the road to zero, Caitlyn Jenner once again stood up and gave the token a shot in the arm.

Caitlyn updated her Instagram account again and posted a quick snap saying "$7 million per hour, the team is Caitlyn Jenner and Sophia Hutchins (Jenner's agent)". Sophia also reposted the quick snap later. Later, Caitlyn started interacting with everyone on the X platform, emphasizing that her account had not been hacked.

The crypto community was also puzzled by this inexplicable operation, but with the trust in Caitlyn, under the temptation of token earnings, Jenner tokens stopped falling and rose again, soaring more than 6 times. Perhaps satisfied with the upward trend, 30 minutes later, Caitlyn appeared on the X platform again and posted a video showing her face, admitting that the token was issued by her, but she was playing golf and enjoying her vacation, and would not participate in the team's upcoming Space today.

The real person’s appearance obviously enhanced the persuasiveness, and the token price continued to soar, rising by 70% again in a few minutes. But then, cautious community members raised a new possibility of fraud: Could this video be a deep fake? Otherwise, why would the developer sell the tokens?

Deep fakes are not new to everyone. In essence, it is an AI technology that uses neural network technology to learn large samples and machine learning models to combine a person's voice, facial expressions and body movements to synthesize false content. In short, AI can be used to change a person's face and voice, and it can be used in videos, and the effect is the same as that of a real person. In recent months, cases of deep fakes have occurred frequently. In the recent Indian general election, a video of "Indian Prime Minister Modi dancing to Bengali pop music" appeared.

Doubts came again, and the token price began to plunge again, and it was cut in half again in a short period of time. Seeing that the situation was gradually getting out of control, Caitlyn held a Space on her X account, and her agent Sophia once again spoke on her behalf to refute the rumors. Under strong evidence, the previous claims of deepfake fraud began to be deleted one after another, and the token market value went from 4 million US dollars to 20 million. Compared with the initial listing price of the token, in these two hours of multiple reversals, the Jenner token has risen 35 times.

Just when everyone thought the dust had settled, the market took another 180-degree turn, with the broker announcing that another token would be issued. Tokens were originally purchased for traffic and popularity, and if they were to be issued again, the value of the first token would inevitably drop significantly. In anticipation of this, Jenner was sold off again, with a 70% drop in half an hour.

The situation was not good again, and Caitlyn came to the rescue again, emphasizing that the team would only focus on $Jenner and would not launch other tokens. As of the third reversal, the token had been online for only more than 2 hours. At 8:20, Caitlyn once again released a new video on the official account. The "moving" Caitlyn celebrated that the token reached a market value of 10 million in 4 hours, and said that there was no forgery and the encrypted token was real.

At this point, retail investors finally put aside their concerns, and the tokens soared, with the highest increase exceeding 160 times at one point. Traders also began to post their orders and communicate, but the drama was staged again.

At 2 a.m. on May 38, Caitlyn once again released a new Pump token, BBARK, without warning. After the news came out, JENNER plummeted from $0.027 to $0.011, and then Caitlyn urgently deleted the tweet, and later updated it with an advertising logo, saying that this was a promotion of other tokens, which was also a response to not releasing other tokens before.

BBARK, like Jenner, experienced a bloodbath after its market value skyrocketed and then plunged. Jenner, however, has recovered its losses and is now trading at $0.01872, with a market value of $20 million. Currently, Caitlyn is continuously posting news about cryptocurrencies and tokens on Twitter. Regarding this operation, some commentators joked, "You have played the entire cryptocurrency circle in 48 hours."

Big rises and big falls are commonplace in the currency circle, but the Kardashian family is unique in having multiple reversals in a short period of time. As for celebrities entering the cryptosphere, there are endless discussions in the community. Supporters believe the move could promote widespread use of crypto and bring in more household names to promote crypto, such as the more controversial Kim Kardashian. Opponents believe that it is not a good thing to be publicly teased and that every move involves the price of the currency. What's more, some even joke that it violates securities laws.

This is true. In recent years, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as a regulator, has continued to crack down on KOL marketing of cryptocurrency projects. In October 2022, Kim Kardashian was charged with a negative typical case of paying $1.3 million to end the regulator's charges against her because she promoted and advertised without disclosing her relationship with the currency. Since then, many celebrities such as Floyd Mayweather and Lindsay Lohan have been fined by the SEC for this reason.

Although Caitlyn openly admitted that she is the issuer and advertiser of the tokens, the market has repeatedly reversed its behavior, which may be a violation of the securities law. After all, many MEME tokens are suspected of being securities. In fact, ask yourself, is it really legal for just a few words to bring tens of millions of market value and retail investors' real money to be easily coerced?

Back to the celebrity side, in fact, in addition to more direct currency holdings, most of the earliest celebrities who entered the crypto market started with NFT. When NFT was the hottest, in addition to popular overseas stars, well-known Chinese idols such as Edison Chen, JJ Lin, Jay Chou, Annie Yi, and Wilber Pan have all launched their own NFT projects, and some of them have been sold at sky-high prices due to the celebrity effect. But now, almost all celebrity NFTs have been folded.

Not long ago, some netizens questioned on Edison Chen’s social platform whether the 2426CNFT project he launched was no longer in operation. Recently, the NFT “Nobody” launched by Stephen Chow in January this year not only had a trading volume of over 3,500 ETH overnight when it was released, but also saw a 500% increase in the floor price from 0.15 ETH to nearly 0.98 ETH, and the current floor price has fallen to 0.108 ETH.

It can be seen that the celebrity effect is undoubtedly a double-edged sword. It can quickly accumulate first-hand traffic, but it can also easily become a weapon for cutting leeks. Especially for current celebrities, before launching a certain token or NFT, most of them do not understand the operation of the crypto market, and the long-term operation route is not very clear. A typical example is that Caitlyn's agent even began to reveal the existence of the second token when the first token was still rising, and the initial incomprehensible token selling also proved this, although Caitlyn later allegedly claimed that she was deceived by the token developer Sahil Arora. But in the final analysis, for them, issuing coins may just be a way to make money and prove their influence.

Sadly, as celebrities, they can easily monetize their traffic. But retail investors in the cryptocurrency circle are chasing hot spots with real feelings, hoping to get on the train quickly before the train brakes and get a pot of gold. Of course, there are also people who can successfully land, for example, there are lucky traders who claim that they have earned more than $100,000 in 3 SOLs, but everyone knows where the casino's profits come from. While retail investors are constantly bumping on this winding rail train, celebrities are still enjoying their golf vacation.

On the other hand, the prevalence of MEME culture has once again made the community doubt the core of encryption. The so-called freedom and decentralization have once again become a false proposition. After all, real disruptive applications are hard to find, but casino MEME can be seen everywhere. Previously, the community has erupted more than once in the MEME influence debate. A16z once publicly criticized MEME for destroying encryption innovation. But opponents also bluntly stated that without MEME, there would be no liquidity, and without liquidity, the currency circle would lose the key driving force for development.

With the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, traditional finance has acquired the two most valuable tokens in the crypto space. For ordinary retail investors, although the bull market repeats itself and the opportunities for ordinary people will never disappear, it is obvious that the dividends are being weakened and the possibility of getting rich quickly continues to decrease. Back to ten years ago, mining machines could make huge profits and holding the currency could also increase by a hundred times; back to four years ago, Defi attempts and airdrops could earn good income; back to three years ago, an NFT might bring freedom; and now, Bitcoin is close to $68,000, Ethereum has reached $3,800, airdrops are not rolling in, and the admission ticket is already very expensive.

In contrast, MEME may be considered one of the stories with the highest odds. Retail investors who are swept up in it can only continue to float in the rapid iteration of ups and downs.