On June 17, American rapper Waka Flocka Flame, whose real name is Juaquin James Malphurs, introduced his cryptocurrency, FLOCKA; however, the launch was overshadowed by allegations of insider trading.
Soon after FLOCKA's release, a single wallet acquired nearly 40% of the token's total supply and distributed it to multiple other wallets.
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT quickly brought attention to this suspicious activity on X, suggesting possible market manipulation.
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Further supporting these suspicions, on-chain analytics platform Bubblemaps reported insider activity following the launch.
Bubblemaps CEO Nicolas Vaiman detailed that at 6 AM UTC, one wallet held 40% of the FLOCKA supply and distributed it across 60 wallets within 30 minutes. He stated:
This is no accident.
He also criticized the increasing broader trend of celebrities entering the crypto space, often without adequate knowledge and with dubious intentions.
ZachXBT also recalled Flame's history with questionable crypto projects, highlighting his promotion of suspicious tokens and undisclosed paid endorsements in 2021 and 2022.
Furthermore, Flame claimed in an X space that he had been studying crypto since 2001, which conflicts with the fact that cryptocurrencies only emerged with Bitcoin in 2008.
Overall, Waka Flocka Flame's foray into cryptocurrency casts a shadow over the launch of FLOCKA and highlights ongoing concerns about celebrity involvement in the crypto market.
In other news, another rapper, Lil Pump, has recently tattooed "Solana" on his forehead, mentioning he sold his SOL tokens.