Get rich quick crypto ‘gurus' are targeting teens and fleecing them through ‘rug pulling'
Crypto really is the financial Wild West. There are almost no regulations or rules in digital coins as there are on the real-world currency exchanges and stock markets.
That makes it all too easy for everyone from hardened criminal gangs to petty grifters to take advantage of anyone they can reach.
All too often, this comes in the form of a friendly face and the well-worn promise that you can ' get rich quick.'
To anyone over 30, those three words will immediately set off alarm bells. But in today's TikTok and Instagram-driven world of influencers and finfluencers (the financial 'advice' equivalent), they have flashy new ways of dressing it up.
The latest vehicle for roping people, all too often younger men and teenagers, is are so-called meme coins. Created from thin air with names which appeal to the public – playing off celebrities, politicians, trends or grabby mascots – they make big money for their creators and the influencers who peddle them, but usually nothing for those who invest.
'The easiest way to make money is to deploy a meme coin, run it and then sell as soon as you see [profits],' Sahil Arora, who's launched over 100 of these coins and claims he's earned millions, told The Post.
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The crypto security firm Blockade says most of the meme coins are scams, designed to have no lasting value.
Like others of his ilk, straight-talking Arora profits through a process known as 'rug pulling.'
A coin is issued, prices rise quickly as people invest, then Arora, who, as the creator, keeps a large percentage of the coins, sells at or near the currency's height.
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He makes money; those who have put money into the coin lose; he essentially 'pulls the rug out' from under them.
'This is the biggest casino on Earth right now,' enthused Dubai-based Arora, who bragged about being called a 'super villain.'
'If you don't get rugged by me, you're probably going to get rugged by someone else. So, you might as well get rugged by a person with a track record of some success rather than getting rugged by a random person on the Internet,' he bafflingly claimed.
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Other, more recognizable influencers who have faced allegations of promoting meme coins and then leaving followers high and dry include Paul 'Ice Poseidon' Denino, Faze Kay, and Haliey 'Hawk Tuah Girl' Welch.
Denino has been accused of promoting a coin and walking away with $300,000, which his followers invested. He said, 'I did make $300,000, but it was not at the expense of any fans or holders.'
Faze Kay is one of several influencers accused of promoting a pump-and-dump scheme for a token called Save the Kids. He tweeted that he had 'no ill intent promoting any crypto alt coins.'
Welch achieved quick fame as the Hawk Tuah Girl and had her name attached to a crypto that earned millions for so-called 'snipers'.
These are people who use bots to monitor the rise of a meme coin and sell as soon as it is close to peaking.
Welch's coin $HAWK lost 95% of its value in minutes. According to Welch's manager, she had no involvement in the scheme. To back it up, he pointed out she was cleared of any wrongdoing by the SEC and other government agencies, and she is also not named in a class action lawsuit against the coin's operators.
While crypto is a growing industry and there are genuine alternative currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, which have stabilized and held their value, many more are just scams.
'You get 'influencers' who are given [crypto] tokens in exchange for promoting them,' Kyle Chassé, a veteran crypto investor who will be appearing on an upcoming streaming show, 'CryptoKnights,' told The Post.
'It should always be disclosed that these people are being paid to promote the coin. But not everybody has the moral compass to do that.'
People who follow the influencers see them promoting a coin and buy into promises that it will 'go to the moon' – crypto speak for gaining huge amounts of value.
'Everyone anticipates the price going up, and it does, because there is a big [group of people] buying into it,' a crypto consultant who goes by the name Cryptony (who asked that his real name not be used) told The Post.
'The rich get richer,' said Cryptony. 'For one person to make money, another person has to lose money. That's where it comes from.'
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But, he added, 'some influencers are using these opportunities to build up their brand, rather than purely to make money from meme coins.'
Aiming for the young and naïve, 'there's an entire class of influencers who have built their entire net worth and become very wealthy by essentially showing off a lifestyle: Their private jets, their fancy cars,' said Chassé. 'They're saying, 'Yeah, if you just watch my channel, you can be like me.''
Anyone can even launch their own coins for a few hundred dollars via platforms such as Pump.Fun. Such was the case for one teenager who launched three coins on the platform and made $50,000 in less time than it would take to sit for a geometry exam.
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But he did it through executing 'a hard rug pull' — in anyone else's language, scamming.
While young men seem most susceptible to all this, as crypto investor Charlene Woods told The Post, 'They don't care how old you are. They're robbing people they don't meet and never looking them in the eye. If they did, it might weigh on their conscience.'
Glenn Titus, a 41-year-old butcher from Oregon, can relate. He invested in multiple coins that have been rugged. 'There were some I lost hundreds on,' he told The Post. In the former scenario, he explained, 'People [online] make it sound good, and the price keeps going up. Then suddenly you can't sell what you have. They pretty much clean out the money and everybody's screwed.'
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Acknowledging that he can't do anything except be more careful in the future, Titus admitted, 'I'm pretty pissed off, honestly.' Now, he said, 'I stick with the Bitcoin kind of stuff.'
Among the red flags to look for, according to Chassé, are those who show off their wealth online. 'You have to wonder where the money came from,' he said.
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