Crypto influencer under fire after parlaying CZ comment into $430K memecoin profit

Yesterday, a scammer bagged $430,000 from shilling a memecoin to his followers after getting a comment from Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.

The scammer shilled a memecoin called Shanghai Composite Index, with the ticker SCI6900, which was created on the BSC chain around four days ago.

Sammer rugs his followers twice

According to crypto sleuth Dethective, the scammer who goes by the name SmokezXBT rugged his followers twice.

At first, SmokezXBT began purchasing SCI6900, along with other crypto influencers. He then shilled the meme coin to his 60,000 followers and spent an hour dumping the coin. At around 4:44 AM UTC, SmokezXBT started buying SCI6900 again.

The scammer got a stroke of luck as one minute and 34 seconds later, at 4:46 AM UTC, CZ commented on the post, “Is this real?”

CZ’s comment pushed the meme coin’s market cap by 10X from $3 million to almost $30 million. The scammer pocketed $430,000 in under two minutes. The token’s price increased by a staggering 4,557%. SmokezXBT bragged about his bag and wrote, “Told you so.”

He even responded to Dethective and wrote, “Keep hating bozzos.” SmokezXBT explained that he bought SCI6900 at a $90,000 market cap, held the coin, and never sold it. Then bought again at a $3 million market cap and sold after CZ’s post. SmokezXBT wrote, “You just witnessed a masterclass on aping memes.”

On-chain data shows that SmokezXBT has 1,466 deleted coin addresses, according to Dethective.

ZachXBT says the scammer is a known grifter

Crypto sleuth ZachXBT commented on Dethective’s X post and said, “That influencer is a known grifter.” He linked to a post from 2023 showing that SmokezXBT rugged his followers through a memecoin named BLOOD. SmokezXBT shilled it for days, rugged his followers, and deleted all social media accounts.

ZachXBT reached out to SmokezXBT, who admitted lying to his followers. He claimed that he created BLOOD, but then said that two devs hired him to act as a marketer and promote the memecoin. ZachXBT said the grifter was “playing victim and making excuses.”

CZ has been active in the crypto memecoin space, particularly after launching the Meme Rush wallet, which provides users with early access to memecoins. A few days ago, the BNB meme season was at its peak, with 70% of investors in profit, according to a report by Cryptopolitan.

However, memecoins on Binance have suffered drastic losses, especially after the crypto market witnessed its largest single-day liquidation, which wiped out $9.55 billion. Binance memecoins suffered a 20.4% loss in the past 24 hours. The overall memecoins market capitalization is down by 19.8%, according to CoinGecko.