solana (SOL) ecosystem tokens have been crashing lately as the entire crypto market has entered a bearish trend. Moreover, investors’ trust in the Solana network has been severely shaken by the recent meme coin presale scam craze. ZachXBT, a crypto sleuth, uncovered a massive scam involving Solana meme coins presale events this month.
Solana Meme Coins Presale Scam
According to a post by ZachXBT on X, the latest Solana meme coin The total amount of SOLs raised by the projects is more than 796,000 SOLs, equivalent to $149.2 million from 33 pre-sales. Moreover, it highlighted some fraudulent accounts that witnessed their projects being solid and refused to initiate SOL repayments.
ZachXBT revealed the presale address of Sartoshi0x, who allegedly pocketed a staggering 62% of the SOL from the presale and failed to fully distribute the tokens as promised. The crypto sleuth shared a screenshot of the transfer in which 4,434 SOLs worth over $800.00 purchased for the Solana meme coin project MILK were transferred to a new address and not to the LP.
In another case, 2100 SOL was sent to the address by Jared_eth on X, which was claimed to be a fake Jared MEV bot account. Previously, investors fell victim to this scheme by sending another $440,000 to a fake Jared account for a pre-sale in June 2023.
In another example, 3300 SOL was sent to Blue Kirby, named after a scammer who was pre-selling the Solana meme coin. Initially promised a refund. However, they dropped the idea, publishing an unhinged article as they decided not to refund investors who accused them of being “scammers.”
Moreover, Vombatus_eth’s SORRY project consolidated after a presale of 13000 SOL, further increasing investors’ losses. The developer claimed that he distributed all funds and moved the LP to a blighted address. Earlier, amid growing concerns about these projects, Solana Co-Founder Anatoly Yakovenko sounded the alarm and discouraged people from investing in such projects.
Is the Solana Ecosystem Leading the Crypto Market Crash?
Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and other top cryptocurrencies suffered huge losses today. While Bitcoin fell below $62,000, Ethereum bottomed at $3,100. Moreover, the crypto crash is thought to be led by Solana ecosystem tokens. Because investors are losing confidence in the Solana network and especially in the new meme coins.
Earlier today, Solana price fell approximately 12% and traded at $165. However, it witnessed a notable recovery as it climbed back above the $170 level. Despite the recovery, the SOL price fell 7.50% to $171.31 as of press time on Wednesday. Additionally, Solana DeFi TVL fell to $3.86 billion after breaking the $4.5 billion mark this week.
Jupiter (JUP), the native token of Solana DEX aggregator Jupiter, fell 6.9% to $1.13. The price of Raydium decreased by 10.40% to $2. Additionally, Orca (ORCA) fell 10% to $4.04. Additionally, the newly launched Solana meme coin Slerf is down 12.3% to $0.828, despite a 1000% rise earlier this week.
Slerf crypto attracted allegations of fraud and Ponzi scheme involvement as its developer accidentally burned LP and 500 million airdrop tokens. Pre-sale investors lost $10.8 million as printing rights were revoked, leaving no room for recovery.
Moreover, dogwifhat (WIF), down 6.7% to $2.15. On the contrary, other Solana meme coins such as Bonk (BONK) and Book of Meme (BOME) have defied the trend to post significant gains. While the Bonk price increased by 7.8% to $0.0000224, BOME increased by 11.60% to $0.01259.
However BOME, also raised suspicions of insider trading when it was listed on Binance. Thereupon, the crypto exchange launched an investigation on the issue. The recent surge is seen as a pump and dump scheme by the crypto community. Therefore, the review on the new Solana meme coins continues.
