Yesterday, the famous Argentine soccer player Leo Messi promoted a crypto on Solana in the stories of his official Instagram profile.
This is Water, a memecoin on Solana that even aims to have a positive impact on the real world.
The official Instagram profile of Water then thanked Messi publicly for the sharing.
Leo Messi and the crypto
Messi became famous for having played for many years in the Spanish team Barcelona, and especially for having led the Argentina national team to victory in the last World Cup, played in Qatar in 2022.
Now, at 37 years old, he plays for Internacional in Miami, in the USA, but he joined Barcelona’s youth team 24 years ago.
For some time now, he has also been interested in cryptocurrencies, so much so that for a few years he has formed a partnership with the exchange Bitget.
Just think that last year he made himself available to promote the launch of an educational crypto project by Bitget, Blockchain4Youth, which aimed to help create a future based on blockchain, inspiring young people to adopt Web3 and crypto tools.
However, before the collaboration with Biget, which began in 2022, the footballer had never engaged in promoting or sponsoring crypto initiatives.
It is possible that his first encounter with the crypto world dates back to 2021, when he was sold from Barcelona to Paris Saint Germain, which at that time was collaborating with Socios, in the midst of a bull run.
The payment in crypto
The news caused a sensation, because what was commonly considered one of the two best footballers in the world at that time had accepted that part of his salary be paid in crypto tokens.
At that time Socios was launching many tokens of many football teams, including that of Paris Saint-Germain (PSG).
When Messi’s tag was purchased by PSG, they paid for it partly in PSG tokens.
According to what was stated by the team, that was the first time that a top player in the world of football was paid in crypto tokens.
With the arrival of the bear-market, however, the PSG token lost a lot of appeal.
After reaching its all-time high price of nearly $59 in April of that year, a few months before Messi’s arrival, the following year the price plummeted to $5, and during 2023 it fell further below $3. Given that the initial price in 2020 was $5, it was a true collapse.
Moreover, even in 2024 it continued to decline, so much so that its all-time low was reached a few days ago at $2.35.
To tell the truth, it doesn’t seem that Messi over time has ever promoted the Paris Saint-Germain token that much. Furthermore, last year his card was sold to Internacional of Miami, and therefore it has been almost a year that the Argentine player no longer has anything directly to do with that token.
It is also possible to imagine, given the collapse in the value of the PSG token, that Messi sold the large quantity of PSG tokens he received at the time of signing the contract with the team.
The memecoin on Solana: Leo Messi promotes the new crypto WATER
Now he has decided instead to promote a memecoin on Solana, Watercoin (WATER).
Although on their official Instagram profile the Watercoin team writes that memecoin can be extremely volatile, inviting to do your own research, they also state that Water would be “The next big memecoin on Solana with the mission to have a net positive impact on the real world”.
As the name itself suggests, Water has to do with water.
It is however very difficult to imagine how a memecoin could actually be linked to water, to the point of even having a positive impact on the real world.
The token WATER, issued on the Solana blockchain, landed on the crypto markets just a few weeks ago.
Since then, its price has already dropped by 40%, even though yesterday it suddenly went from 0.3 thousandths of a dollar to 1.4 thousandths after Messi’s story on Instagram.
The initial price was 22 thousandths, so it still remained in the negative zone, furthermore, during the rest of the day, it then fell back below 10 thousandths.
Practically the story of Messi has lifted him from the lows, even though with such a limited history it still makes little sense to talk about lows or highs.
The crypto project on Solana promoted by Leo Messi
The Water team claims that theirs is a charity project.
To tell the truth, their website currently on the home page only promotes the purchase of the token, even going so far as to claim that the Water token would be as scarce as Bitcoin.
Moreover, they explicitly write that the charity initiatives related to the project will attract the attention of millions of people in the future, suggesting that they have not yet been organized.
Furthermore, they promise rewards to those who become a holder of this token.
Everything suggests that for now it is only the pre-sale of a token created precisely to be sold.
Maybe in the future the Watercoin team will actually organize something concrete in some way related to water, but for now the only certain thing that already exists is the sale of the token they created from nothing.