UFC star Khamzat Chimaev caught in cryptocurrency scam

After launching his own cryptocurrency called “Smash,” Russian professional mixed martial artist (MMA) and freestyle wrestler Khamzat Chimaev has become the target of mockery from the UFC and crypto communities, and an online security researcher has found evidence that points to a possible scam.

Indeed, the UFC fighter recently asked his followers what they thought was the best crypto asset to invest in, shortly after he announced the release of his own cryptocurrency named “Smash” and a pseudonymous scam investigator. ZachXBT revealed insider trading, detailing it in an article published on X on July 4.

As it turns out, the researcher accused Chimaev and his team of incompetence in a comment on the wrestler’s X-rated post that includes the token address, telling them they “directly linked the team wallets to the insider wallets buying 78% of the supply” and asking why “you all instantly destroyed your reputation with meme coin scams?”

How the cryptocurrency scam happened

SO, ZachXBT proceeded to present the summary of the alleged scam, claiming that temporal analysis confirmed that “71% of insider and development team wallets are directly linked” because the same address on Ethereum (ETH) was funding them, publishing the address ‘0x8ae40d1e89cd7333efe42a35969f0b8548fe54a8’ on Solana (SOL) as an example.

As he later revealed, the scam went like this:

Additionally, the investigator listed the 24 addresses that purchased 712 million SMASH “or 71.2% of the total supply,” after which they each dispersed that amount to more addresses, after which he stopped tracking the said supply and he also published the visual representation of the scheme.

At the same time, ZachXBT posted a screenshot of the SMASH/SOL price chart in another comment of the same post on the social media platform, showing a 18.81% drop in one hour, from nearly 0.02 SOL to 0.0003513. The token is currently trading at a price of 0.00048 SOL.

Celebrity-Backed Crypto Scams

Unfortunately, scams are not uncommon in the crypto sphere, and celebrities like Chimaev are not immune to them, whether they participate in them knowingly or not, as stated by American podcast host Joe Rogan and renowned scam investigator Stephen Findeisen, aka Cafezilla noted in March 2023.

As a reminder, they noted that a number of famous people were backing the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, and also discussed allegations by American media personality and Chimaev’s counterpart, wrestler Logan Paul, that he defrauded investors in his crypto project. Cryptozooas Finbold reported at the time.

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