Original title: (Celeb tokens that burned bright, then burned out in 2024)

Author: Jesse Coghlan, CoinTelegraph

Compiled by: Deng Tong, Golden Finance

Celebrity-themed crypto tokens experienced fleeting moments in 2024, as public figures sought to monetize their fame amid the steady rise of cryptocurrencies.

But the fleeting 'celebrity meme coins' have seen their values plummet since launch, either dropping sharply from their peaks.

Let's take a look at those meme celebrity tokens that went silent without a launch in 2024.

Caitlyn Jenner's JENNER

Former Olympic athlete Caitlyn Jenner launched her namesake Caitlyn Jenner (JENNER) token through the Solana memecoin launcher Pump.fun at the end of May.

This launch was overshadowed by chaos, as many believed Jenner's X account had been hacked.

Even the now-deleted video ensuring she wasn’t hacked is viewed as a deep fake, as other celebrities, including Jenner's former stepdaughter Kim Kardashian, have faced severe crackdowns from the SEC for promoting crypto tokens.

Bubblemaps indicates that in later celebrity token launches, a batch of wallets held a quarter of the token supply and sold out early for $500,000.

Jenner blamed Arora for the early price drop of the token, claiming he deceived her team. She then launched the token on Ethereum, which, according to CoinGecko, has now essentially lost all its value, dropping 98.5% from its peak.

In November last year, Jenner faced a class-action lawsuit for promoting these tokens, with allegations that she and her manager Sophia Hutchins 'fraudulently solicited financially immature investors [...] to purchase unregistered securities.'

Mother Iggy

Australian rapper Iggy Azalea (real name Amethyst Kelly) is known for her hit single (Fancy) from ten years ago. She launched the trendy Mother Iggy (MOTHER) token in May, which is reportedly part of a series of controversial celebrity token launches initiated by Sahil.

MOTHER was launched after Azalea accused Arora of using her likeness to launch the token. According to CoinGecko data, MOTHER peaked at 23 cents in early June but has since fallen about 87%, trading around 5 cents for most of this year.

MOTHER briefly broke through 20 cents shortly after its launch but failed to rise again thereafter. Source: CoinGecko

This is not due to Azalea's lack of effort. She—or someone on her team—has made posting about the token a full-time job, with countless posts about it every day on X and Telegram.

The now-retired rap star also tried to give the meme coin 'utility,' launching an online crypto casino called Motherland days before Christmas that accepts the token, and relaunched her telecom company Unreal Mobile, whose phones and plans accept MOTHER.

Cryptocurrency analysis company Bubblemaps claims that MOTHER saw insider activity at launch, with a few wallets buying 20% of the supply before Azalea publicly announced it, then immediately selling for a profit of $2 million.

Earlier this year, lawyers stated that U.S. residents Azalea and other American celebrities could face conflict with the local SEC, which claims that most crypto tokens are securities.

Hawk Tuah (HAWK)

Haliey Welch rose to fame in June after the controversial launch of the Hawk Tuah (HAWK) meme coin, and her slogan gained popularity again.

HAWK launched in December, with Bubblemaps analysis stating that insider wallets purchased the token and then dumped large amounts at launch.

Welch denied that her team was involved in any insider activities, but by then, HAWK had become a public relations nightmare, with community comments on her X posts pointing out that the token was already a bust.

She 'copied and pasted' the token distribution and release schedule of HAWK.

Welch and her token team—including Alex Shultz, also known as 'Hollywood Doctor,' who runs a crypto consulting firm for celebrities called Memetic Labs—then did a live stream on X, which was streamed by YouTube investigator Stephen Finders, also known as Coffeezilla.

The live stream was later removed from X.

Sharks began to position themselves in this farce, with lawyers targeting HAWK buyers, who initiated a class-action lawsuit against Shultz, OverHere, its founder Clinton So, and the organization behind the token, Tuah the Moon Foundation, on December 20.

Welch made her first public statement since the release on December 20 to avoid being mentioned in litigation, stating that she is assisting with the class-action lawsuit regarding the token and urging HAWK holders to contact the law firm leading the lawsuit.

Other celebrity meme coins

It is claimed that more celebrities promoted tokens this year, but these tokens have now fallen from their peak and are accused of large-scale insider trading, among other things.

The artist Jason Desrouleaux's eponymous token Jason Derulo (JASON) also followed a similar release pattern, with its price plummeting and being accused of insider allocation.

JASON has dropped over 98% from its peak, with Derulo last posting about the token in September, having not posted any information for the previous two months.

American rapper Cardi B (Belcalis Cephus) launched her WAP (WAP) token in October.

WAP has dropped 99.7% from its peak and is accused of allocating more than half of its tokens to insiders. So far, Cardi B has only posted about the token about 5 times on X.