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Are AI Hackers Rug-Pulling an Entire Country for $350 Million?
It seems like memecoin mania has reached another level. I’d go so far to say what I saw on Monday is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen in 14 years in this market...
Adam Atlantic
February 11, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
It seems like memecoin mania has reached another level.
As I wrote yesterday, my own (extremely lucky) experience with ‘Big Balls’ over the weekend is proof that memecoin craziness is still abundant.
However, things stepped up a level on Monday. I’d go so far to say, what I saw on Monday is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen in 14 years in this market.
112,601% in Under Four Hours
Out of nowhere on Monday the President of the Central African Republic posted this to X.com.
This was no spoof X.com account. It was the official account of the President of the Central African Republic.
Right away on decentralised exchanges, this $CAR memecoin exploded from $0.0007897 to $0.89 in under four hours.
Source: DEX Screener
That took it to a market cap of $890 million, a 112,601% rise.
The astonishing part of this is it was all through official accounts of the President. There was even a video of him announcing the launch.
This is where things get WEIRD.
This is a screenshot of that video.
If you think it looks a little strange, that’s because it is a little strange. In fact, it’s so strange that rumours started to float around that it wasn’t the President at all, but an AI avatar and voice clone of the President.
The strange cuts in the video, the strange looking appearance of him not in the actual government building, the strange background, just the sheer absurdity of it all.
Surely, surely, this couldn’t be real.
Maybe this was a sophisticated hack of the President’s accounts and an AI scam video to pump the token?
A few online sleuths ran the video through AI filters, to see if AI would detect that it was an AI video. It passed two of them, one said it was suspicious another said deepfake AI detected.
In other words, inconclusive.
Meanwhile in the hours after the CAR token pumped to an $890 million market cap, its price began to tumble, and tumble, and tumble. Right now, it’s still at a $43 million dollar valuation, but that’s a 95% drop a bit over 24 hours later.
When it’s Time for You to Make Profits
If this is a legitimate attempt by an African nation to launch and pump a memecoin, they succeeded. But then failed. It’s done exactly what most memecoins do. Huge initial pump and then 90%-plus falls after the hype.
Someone made bank, and you can bet it was whoever created this thing.
If it’s a sophisticated AI scam, then it’s a very sharp wake up call to everyone that we’re entering a new age of scams.
I’ve highlighted previously on how to avoid two types of scam – add this to your register as well… Deepfake AI video scams.
To make matters worse, in the aftermath, we’re now seeing scams and rug pulls popping up from other African nations (nothing to do with any of the real countries) from South Africa to Niger and Nigeria, Ethiopia and Kenya – all scams, all rug pulls.
We have seen this kind of ‘country coin’ before with things like Auroracoin (Iceland) in 2014 and RusCoin in 2018. So, it’s interesting that now, again this is part of the cycle once more.
It isn’t a great look.
However, it is indicative of the hype cycle and FOMO that usually enters the market before quality crypto start to go parabolic.
I’ve focused a bit on the memecoins of late, but these are all signs the good stuff in the market is primed to shoot higher now. With that in mind I’ll start to pinpoint some more of the quality crypto in the market for you to get familiar with.
Because after the memecoins pump, the rotation to quality soon follows.
That’s when the market whips up into a proper blow-off-top frenzy and that’s where you make your profits.
Trust in crypto,
Adam Atlantic