Australian musician Iggy Azalea’s recently launched memecoin surged to a market capitalization of over $28 million on May 29, surpassing a token named after her by Sahil Arora, who has been accused of fraudulent activities.
Azalea distanced herself from Arora for the second consecutive day after Arora posted a screenshot on Telegram. The screenshot appeared to show a text message in which the artist discussed a social media campaign for his new token.
Azalea claims that she has “never even spoken to the guy,” who had “one phone conversation” with her manager.
“Also don’t believe the bullshit fake screen shots n all the rest… Sahil baby take your L and go already,” Azalea said on X.
This week, at least two public figures have accused Arora’s celebrity memecoin projects of being scams. Olympian Caitlyn Jenner and American rapper Rich the Kid (Dimitri Leslie Roger) have publicly made these accusations.
Azalea’s token, named MOTHER and built on the Solana blockchain, debuted just hours after Arora launched IGGY.
Related: Scam crypto projects using stolen funds for liquidity disappear
IGGY had a strong debut, quickly reaching a market capitalization of approximately $3 million, but it plummeted to around $158,000 by 11 am UTC on May 29, according to data from DEX Screener.
Azalea’s MOTHER had reached a market value of $18.2 million by the same time.
But strong market performance may not be Arora’s target for IGGY, as he has been accused of multiple pump-and-dump schemes, often involving alleged presale scams.
Arora’s IGGY launch was also preceded by a presale, a fundraising tactic in which investors send funds to a specific address.
This method is not a requirement for launching coins on Pump.fun, the memecoin launchpad used for IGGY. The suspicious method has drawn public scam accusations.
Solscan records revealed that the Solana address Arora used for the presale held over $370,000 in Solana’s SOL (SOL) as of 10 am UTC.
Arora denies the scams allegations, saying people “couldn’t time right entries so they got burned.”
“Tons of people make big from my launches,” Arora told Cointelegraph in an earlier message exchange. “The few that don’t become haters.”
Related: Caitlyn Jenner joins Rich the Kid alleging they were ‘scammed’
Azalea’s token launch has not been without its controversies.
She posted an Instagram story featuring two men working on computers, one of whom bore a striking resemblance to Arora.
This fueled speculation about a possible collaboration between Azalea and the alleged scam artist.
However, subsequent posts showing the man’s face from a different angle revealed that the individual in question was actually Azalea’s brother, Matthias Kelly.
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