What Are Celebrity Tokens in Crypto?

What Are Celebrity Tokens?

Celebrity tokens are meme coins referencing famous public personalities and entertainment icons, with many of these launched on the Solana network.

Key Takeaways

• Celebrity tokens derive their value from the celebrity who launched them, or whose name they bear, while using community-led promotions as seen in usual meme coins.

• These tokens may or may not be launched, endorsed, and promoted by the personalities they are named for.

• Some celebrity tokens include JENNER (Caitlyn Jenner), MOTHER (Iggy Azalea), RICH (Rich the Kid), ZACK (Edward Constantin), TRUMP (MAGA) and DAVIDO (Davido). 

• This article discusses the celebrity token meta, their relevance to crypto investors, and takes a look at some notable tokens in this category.

The Solana network has sustained a long-running meme coin wave, housing thousands of tokens that only derive value from funny events, graphics, animals, and now celebrities. The meme coin wave on the network is similar to that seen on other networks, however, the high liquidity and low transaction fees on the network has built a fertile ground for these kinds of projects to thrive, in spite of their volatility. 

Part of the fundamentals for each meme coin is its 'meta'. A ‘meta’ is the catalyst for each meme coin wave. The Trump meta, cat meta, and dog (and celebrity dog) meta are some popular ones. In what has become a new wave, celebrities around the world are now launching meme coins on the network. At time of writing, based on data from GeckoTerminal, the 24 hour trading volume of Celebrity tokens is currently over $100 million. 

Over the past few weeks, multiple celebrity-themed tokens have launched on the network. From meme coins launched by popular traders (like ZACK) to parodies of such projects ('jeo boden' and 'doland tremp') and now meme coins launched by popular musicians, like Iggy Azalea and Davido. 

Here, we discuss celebrity tokens, the celebrity meme coin meta, and what they could mean for the everyday cryptocurrency investor, along with some notable projects in the category.

Understanding Celebrity Tokens in Crypto

Celebrity tokens reference famous personalities, ranging from sports, entertainment, politics, and even social media. Celebrity tokens can be associated directly with the referenced figure or just launched without their involvement of any sort. Regardless, the branding, promotion, and price actions of the tokens are connected to the celebrity and the coverage of them in popular media. To connect with their community, celebrity token pages usually create memes around their chosen personality that resonates with the token’s community. 

An instance is the Trump meta. The former United States president is the subject of several meme coins named after him, his election slogan (MAGA), or both. The current US president has also been used in similar projects (like Joe Boden and his meme counterpart ‘jeo boden’). While Trump is not directly involved in TRUMP (MAGA), creators of the project gifted him 580,000 tokens. 

Meme coins have also been launched in reference to football superstars Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, and Jack Grealish. Joining the list are meme coins launched with the names of musicians like Kendrick Lamar, Drake, and Kanye West. However, these public figures are not personally involved in any of these projects.

On the other hand, some celebrities have launched their own meme coins. These tokens are promoted by the celebrities themselves, who advertise them directly to their followers on social media and also engage in extra promotional activities for the tokens. Unlike unofficial celebrity tokens, celebrities are involved in the branding of these kinds of meme coins. 

Each celebrity adopts different tactics to promote their meme coins, but these are hardly different from the basic community-driven promotions that meme coins are known for. Recent meme coins directly associated with celebrities have been caught in controversies involving meme coin promoter – Sahil Arora.

Who Is Sahil Arora?

Sahil Arora has been implicated in many celebrity meme coin launches. The Instagram influencer claims to be in contact with several celebrities and shows this off to his 1.6 million followers on the social media platform. The acclaimed influencer is reportedly behind several token launches, including one-time promotion negotiations for memecoin projects. The meme coin promoter claims to be behind the launch of JENNER, a meme coin associated with Olympic Gold Medalist Caitlyn Jenner.

However, according to reports, there are reports of irregularities regarding the delivery of negotiation terms on the sides of the celebrities and Sahil himself. Celebrities like Caitlyn Jenner, American rappers, Offset (stage name), and Iggy Azalea have also accused the influencer of not delivering on his side of the negotiations and have distanced themselves from the influencer. Following weeks of turbulence, social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has reportedly banned Sahil Arora’s account. However, sources claim that he has since created new accounts, and recent activities on his Instagram page suggest that he remains active in the space.

Vitalik Buterin’s Criticism of Celebrity Tokens

In a recent tweet on X, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has come out to state his concerns that most celebrity tokens don’t serve any purpose beyond making money. He states in a separate blogpost on meme coins that they “often seem to just go up and down in price and contribute nothing of value in their wake” that “feels exciting in month N but leaves everyone upset in month N+1.”  He does, however, acknowledge that meme coins appeal to people’s desire to have fun, and wishes to see celebrity meme coin projects that support some kind of public good goal, like an art project or the celebrity’s favorite charity. 

A quick summary of features that a celebrity crypto project needs to have for me to be more willing to respect it:

1. Have some kind of public-good goal that it's serving, other than enriching the celebrity and early adopters. Realistically, either an art project or the…

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) June 5, 2024

Risks Associated With Celebrity Tokens

While celebrity meme coins might have a few attractions like a popular figure and chances of quick gains, it also comes with several risks. Some of these risks include;

Volatility

Cryptocurrencies are a volatile asset class, they are usually prone to quick swings in price development. However, due to the liquidity conditions, trading set-up, and the perception of value for meme coins, they are even more exposed to these quick swings. Celebrity tokens fall into this asset class. Due to their value relying on community activity, with little or no tokenomics strategy, most memecoins have their total supply in circulation and are held by traders who are always willing to cash in on their profits. 

Rug Pulls

One of the acclaimed advantages of meme coins is the low barrier to entry; this is true for both traders and meme coin creators. Anyone can create meme coins and manage the token supply and smart contract agreements. Due to the low regulations in this sector, foul-playing creators can interact negatively with the liquidity pool. 

A rug pull defines an unfortunate event where a token or liquidity pool creator pairs their token with standard cryptocurrencies like USDT, and pulls out all the funds after investors’ buy-in, rendering the token untradeable and close to worthless. Even with solutions like liquidity locking, this is still possible, especially when the creator can mint more tokens. Some celebrity tokens have rugged shortly after launch, leaving investors with significant losses.

Copyright Concerns

Apart from celebrity tokens that are directly associated with the public figure, most celebrity tokens operate without the knowledge of the referenced individual. Certain activities of the project like the use of images and intellectual properties could infringe on the rights of the celebrity. Affected individuals can take legal action against the meme coin creator(s). The effect on the investors is usually the loss of capital due to the crash in value that could follow events like this.

Notable Celebrity Tokens

Now, let’s look at some celebrity tokens that have made the waves recently;

JENNER (Caitlyn Jenner)

American celebrity and former athlete, Caitlyn Jenner launched the JENNER meme coin on May 26 2024. The meme coin was first launched on the fair launch platform – Pump.fun and subsequently on the Raydium Dex. 

JENNER rallied to a market cap of over $43 million and registered a higher trading volume than fellow Solana meme coin WIF. This is a result of the widespread social media activities, notably from Caitlyn herself. Posts from her social media accounts show support for the token and personal verifications to refute claims that her social media account was hacked to promote the token. Caitlyn Jenner has since this time continued to promote the project, however, due to a long-running selloff, the asset trades below the $7 million market cap at the time of writing.

Caitlyn Jenner has also expanded the JENNER meme coin to the Ethereum blockchain, the JENNER/ETH pair was created on May 29, 2024, according to data from GeckoTerminal. As part of her support for former US president – Donald Trump, some of the revenue generated from the meme coin on Ethereum will reportedly be donated to the 45th president’s re-election bid. JENNER is currently listed on HTX exchange, MEXC, Gate Exchange, and decentralized exchanges on Solana and Ethereum. See active trading pairs for JENNER.

MOTHER (Iggy Azalea)

There are only a few viral memes that haven’t gotten a MOTHER variant yet. Australian rapper Iggy Azalea has been more active than she has ever been on social media platform X as she promotes her celebrity memecoin. The Mother/SOL pair was created on May 28, 2024, following controversies surrounding an earlier token created in reference to the rapper. In response to posts associating the project with Sahil Arora, Iggy Azalea claimed that MOTHER was launched as a solitary effort with help from her ‘lil brothers’. The token has been received positively by the Solana and crypto community. 

At the time of writing, MOTHER sits at a market cap of over $100 million as she continues to promote the project on her socials, aided by other influencers and projects in the space, including Solana-based liquidity and lending solution – Kamino Finance, which added MOTHER to its liquidity vaults.

MOTHER is live on Kamino!

Liquidity vault for $MOTHER - $SOL is up and running

Welcome to Solana @IGGYAZALEA - Mother provides 🫡 pic.twitter.com/lRawMYjej6

— Kamino (@KaminoFinance) June 3, 2024

Iggy Azalea also claims to hold 3% of the total token supply. She has pledged to burn part of this any time a celebrity meme coin rugs. The progress made by the project is mainly thanks to the growing community activity and other notable projects and influencers chiming into the trend. MOTHER has also been listed on several centralized crypto exchanges, including HTX exchange, MEXC, Gate exchange, and LBank. See active trading pairs for MOTHER.

TRUMP (MAGA)

Former president of the USA, Donald Trump, is a major meme coin meta. Several meme coins reference the 2024 presidential aspirant and his campaign slogan. While some of the projects are comic parodies of the 45th president, TRUMP (MAGA) has a serious side to it. The meme coin project claims to donate part of the revenues generated to charitable organizations.

Since launching on August 11, 2023, MAGA has built a large community with devoted members promoting the project on social media platforms. MAGA is available on the Ethereum, Base, Solana, and Binance Smart chain (BSC). According to the project, it has reached over 50,000 cumulative holders on these networks. TRUMP employs the usual community-driven promotion, partly fueled by real-life events concerning the former president in his bid to return to the White House.

TRUMP has seen a significant price growth in 2024. It reached an all-time high of over $17 on June 1, 2024, after opening for the year at just above $0.2 per token. TRUMP is tradable on decentralized exchanges on the four networks and centralized exchanges like MEXC, LBANK, and BitMart. See active trading pairs for MAGA.

ZACK (Zack Morris)

Edward Constantinescu, who goes by the nickname Mr Zack Morris, might have been on the news previously for market manipulation and ‘pump and dump’, but this time, he is promoting ZACK, a memecoin he is directly associated with. According to GeckoTerminal, ZACK launched on the Solana blockchain on May 15, 2024, and has built a devoted community in just 20 days. At the time of writing, the recorded market cap of ZACK is over $70 million, the meme coin reached an all-time high of over $0.10 per token just about 8 days after it launched.

Zack benefits from the promotional activities led by Zack Morris himself and in the usual meme coin style, the project’s community and other influencers have lent their voices to the project. ZACK trades on decentralized exchanges on the Solana network and centralized exchanges like MEXC, LBANK, and Bitrue. See active trading pairs for ZACK.

DAVIDO (Davido)

In a quite controversial turn of events, Nigerian Afrobeats musician David Adeleke (stage name: Davido), launched the DAVIDO meme coin on May 29, 2024, joining the celebrity meme coin wave. The artists announced the assets ticker on his X page and created the tokens just minutes after this. DAVIDO reached a market cap of over $14 million shortly after being launched but has since succumbed to a wide sell-off. It trades at a market cap of just over $1 million at the time of writing. 

A significant contributor to the asset's performance is the artist’s record of involvement in fraudulent projects and pyramid schemes. Despite support from notable Solana projects like Phantom Wallet, the musician has slowed down promotional activities for his token project. According to a report by Lookonchain, a wallet linked to the musician has been implicated in snipping the asset at launch and selling his holdings for over $450,000.

Davido(@davido) launched a token named $DAVIDO and made a profit of 2,783 $SOL($473K) in just 11 hours, also has an unrealized profit of $207K.

11 hours ago, he received 7.5 $SOL($1,275) as start-up capital, created $DAVIDO on https://t.co/C909I8882s and spent 7 $SOL($1,190) to… pic.twitter.com/3ObDhsMbOU

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) May 30, 2024

DAVIDO trades on Solana dexes and has also been listed on BitMart. See active trading pairs for DAVIDO.

Final Thoughts

Mainstream celebrities have always had a history of getting intertwined with the crypto space, from sportsmen promoting decentralized projects to celebrities launching NFTs and now meme coins. Drawing on a celebrity’s mainstream appeal can attract new individuals to the crypto space, potentially speeding up the mass awareness of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. 

However, like most other meme coins, celebrity tokens can be risky, given the volatility of the space, and should you wish to invest in celebrity tokens, always do your own research and never invest more capital than you can afford to lose. 

This article is only for informational purposes and should not be taken as financial advice. Projects mentioned in this article are for illustrative purposes and should not be considered as an endorsement from CoinGecko or the writer.