CoinDesk Report:
Undefeated UFC superstar Khamzat Chimaev, who has been sidelined from fighting for nine consecutive months, has turned to cryptocurrency—now even launching his own meme coin.
On Tuesday, the Russian-born wrestler polled fans on which cryptocurrency he should invest in, sparking both fan suggestions and panic. This follows a trend among many celebrities launching their own tokens. Chimaev, predictably, followed suit.
The next day, he encouraged fans to purchase “SMASH,” an emoji-themed token named after his famous catchphrase “smash everyone in front of me.”
Chimaev tweeted, “I have a cryptocurrency, they call it SMASH. Let’s ‘smash’ together, guys, let’s go.”
Unfortunately for early buyers, SMASH plummeted to zero by Friday, nearly as quickly as Chimaev dispatches opponents. According to GeckoTerminal, the token dropped 96% in the past 24 hours, shortly after the fighter’s tweet.
Veteran cryptocurrency enthusiasts familiar with such schemes quickly called out Chimaev, likening it to a classic pump-and-dump scheme. Blockchain sleuth ZachXBT soon linked the majority of the dumped token supply directly to wallets associated with the fighter’s development team, labeling it a meticulously planned scam.
ZachXBT explained, “Temporal analysis confirms 71% of the internal and development team wallets are directly linked, funded from the same Ethereum address.”
The analyst detailed instances where funds from a common Ethereum address were shortly followed by deposits into various Solana addresses, including major exchanges like Binance and token swap app SideShift.
Following this exposure, Chimaev deleted all tweets related to cryptocurrency or his SMASH token.
The boxer was slated to face third-ranked middleweight Robert Whittaker in Saudi Arabia on June 22, but had to withdraw due to serious illness. The bout has not been rescheduled, leaving early SMASH buyers potentially awaiting Chimaev’s reckoning at the hands of Bobby Knuckles.
