On-chain researcher Zachary Walk, known as ZachXBT, has criticized crypto influencer Zion Thomas (Ansem) for implementing a Pump & Dump scheme on multiple meme coins.
According to the expert, Thomas played a significant role in promoting undercapitalized coins on Solana.
ZachXBT first mentioned the influencer in a comment regarding Murad Makhmudov's speech titled "The Meme Coin Super Cycle" at the Token 2049 conference in September.
Makhmudov previously held the post of IT Director at Adaptive Capital. The cryptocurrency hedge fund collapsed amid the market collapse in 2020. Since then, the entrepreneur began publishing a rating of the most promising, in his opinion, coins in the segment in his X-account.
ZachXBT made claims against Thomas for such behavior.
"If you're pushing new low cap meme coins to your followers every few days as a big account, it's because you don't have any achievements and you're using followers instead," Walk said.
Ansem cited the fact that his recommendations performed better than utility tokens like Chainlink (LINK), which has fallen 90% against Bitcoin since the start of the year.
The expert retorted sharply, mentioning celebrity tokens promoted by the influencer, such as BODEN, HOBBES, ZEUS, and WYNN. According to CoinGecko, the mentioned assets have lost 98-99% from their highs.
“The ‘low cap junk’ you’re talking about has dominated 90% of the retail narrative in crypto over the last year. Pump Fun is the#1app by revenue. Like it or not, that’s what people want to trade,” Thomas responded.
When criticized for hurting users' long-term commitment to digital assets by "leading them to slaughter every day," the influencer wrote:
"People are calling me the meme coin guy now. In early 2022 I was the Cosmos guy, in late 2021 I was linked to DFK, and before that Solana."
Ultimately, Thomas invited Walk to share what information he had helped users make money in the crypto market.
For the most part, commentators did not support the influencer.
Recall that billionaire and crypto investor Mark Cuban called all meme coins a potential scam.
What do you think? Memcoins - a quick way to wealth or a loss of your funds!?