Nigerian star Davido latest to be ensnarled in string of celebrity meme coin rug-pulls

Nigerian singer Davido is the latest celebrity to be involved in a rug-pulling incident orchestrated by Indian national Sahil Arora, who is allegedly responsible for other recent pump-and-dump incidents.

The singer, who has more than 15.3 million followers on X and 7.9 million monthly listeners on Spotify, launched a memecoin called “DAVIDO” on May 29. The launch was accompanied by the slogan: “When time stops, the pump stops.”

According to chain tracker Lookonchain, DAVIDO was launched on popular Solana memecoin creator Pump.fun. The token address received 7.5 SOL upon launch as seed capital.

DAVIDO wallet SOL transfers | Source: Solscan

The 7 SOL from the transfer was used to purchase 203 million DAVIDO, accounting for 20.3% of the token’s total supply.

The singer was later seen promoting the token to his followers on X, even encouraging them to hold DAVIDO, claiming that he expected the token to reach a market cap of $30 million.

WAIT, WAIT! We just have begun! 30 MILLION WILL COMING SOON 🔥⏳✨

— Davido (@davido) May 29, 2024

11 hours later, the singer sold 121.88 million DAVIDO for $2,791 SOL; this figure was valued at approximately $474,000 at the time. The token’s price has fallen over 90% from its all-time high of $0.003297 on Wednesday.

At the time of publication, the token was trading at $0.002343, down 37% from its all-time high.

Lookonchain also found that 20 million DAVIDO tokens were transferred to an address identified as “dead1111…1111”.

The drop in prices has raised concerns about the rug-pulling operation organized by the Nigerian singer, but he is yet to address the situation.

Celebrity-themed tokens have been in the spotlight this week, as there have been several examples of these tokens falling into the hands of investors looking to make a quick buck.

American media personality Caitlyn Jenner also launched JENNER, a SOL-based meme coin on Pump.fun. However, within hours of its launch, the price of the token crashed as developers disposed of large amounts of previously acquired tokens.

It was later revealed that alleged fraudster Sahil Arora was behind the incident, taking advantage of Jenner’s lack of knowledge of the cryptocurrency space and abusing his role as a middleman to profit from the token.

The same scammer also raised more than $300,000 in a token pre-sale under the guise of Australian musician Iggy Azalea. Sahil launched the IGGY coin which was up over 30,000% but turned into a pump and dump scheme. The token is down over 70% from its all-time high on May 29 at the time of publication.

American rapper “Rich the Kid” also accused Arora of hacking account X to promote a scam token called “RICH” under his name.

Interestingly, a report by Magazine revealed that Arora had circulated a list of celebrities who he claimed could get promotions.

The list, shared by a crypto exchange listing manager, included celebrity endorsement fees ranging from $6,000 to $315,000 for notable names such as Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian and Lindsay Lohan.

Davido was also listed for $8,000. This connection raises the possibility that Arora may also be behind the latest rug pulling incident involving Davido’s boob money.