Solana Meme Coin Sharpei Plunges 96% in Seconds in Epic Rug Pull

A Solana meme coin promoted by crypto influencers shot up to a market cap of $54 million in less than an hour – but soon after, the price collapsed dramatically in a matter of seconds as a multitude of wallets dropped tokens in value in one fell swoop sold for $3 million.

Sharpei (SHAR) launched on Wednesday and was promoted with cartoon artwork of a Shar-Pei dog. Combined with the push from crypto Twitter influencers – also known as “Key Opinion Leaders” or KOLs – the meme coin quickly reached a market cap of $54 million.

As this peak was reached, the project’s pitch deck leaked a claim that the project’s developers had “over 50 Tier 1 KOLs” on board and had plans to work with exchanges and other projects. Some of the influencers named in the document denied any involvement in the project.

The leaked presentation claimed that a strategic partnership with leading meme coin BONK would be formed once SHAR reaches a market cap of $100 million – which was disputed by major Bonk contributors Kadense and Nom. Meanwhile, the pseudonymous influencer Joji, who has over 200,000 followers, has also been named as being involved – a claim the influencer denies, sharing a screenshot of Telegram messages that supposedly disprove a partnership.

But it wasn’t all a lie. Another influencer named Yelotree, who has 180,000 followers, was featured in the presentation and posted about the project. Yelotree told Decipher that he was paid for the promotion three months ago, although this was not disclosed in his tweet. Yelo claimed that other major KOLs were involved in the project, many of which had their posts deleted.

While this was all playing out, SHAR dropped from $54 million to $35.5 million. This must have worried insiders, as the token crashed 96.3% to a market cap of $1.3 million in just two seconds following a massive, coordinated sale.

“One of the craziest rugs I’ve ever seen,” said a pseudonymous dealer on Twitter.

Blockchain data visualization company Bubblemaps found that 60% of the total token supply was purchased at launch and distributed across more than 100 addresses. Each one of these addresses then sent their supply to a central wallet, which sold everything in one clip for $3.4 million. The company confirmed this Decipher that it would define this as a rug pull.

In response, the official SHAR Twitter account stated that the project “no longer had the funds to continue operations” due to widespread fear, uncertainty and doubt (also known as “FUD”). Sharpei’s creators said they would provide proof of communication with each influencer mentioned, although they have not yet reached an agreement with each one. A day later that still hasn’t happened.

The SHAR team did not respond DecipherPlease comment on Twitter.

Influencers are often sent a percentage of the total token supply in return for a project’s social media promotion. For example, leaked messages with Wizard Of SoHo, a pseudonymous KOL with over 115,000 followers, showed that the influencer demanded 0.75% of the token supply in return for advertising – which the team did not accept.

For many projects, this is an essential part of marketing and advertising – not unlike product endorsements by celebrities. This ranges from the grassroots of Pump.fun betting on meme coins, to micro-influencers receiving payments for small-cap tokens, to the large multi-million dollar tokens.

“KOLs are an important part of crypto, and there is nothing fundamentally wrong with projects needing to be commercialized.” Nick Vaiman, co-founder and CEO of Bubblemaps, said: Decipher. “The problem arises when KOLs do not disclose their involvement, [and] Do not disclose how much they purchased or received.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward