Before Waka Flocka Flame announced the launch, around 40% of the total supply of the coin had been acquired.
On June 17, American rapper Juaquin James Malphurs, better known as Waka Flocka Flame, introduced the FLOCKA cryptocurrency.
Almost immediately after its inception, insider trading claims surfaced.
Suspicious transaction activity was discovered with a wallet that obtained around 40% of the coin’s supply and distributed it to other wallets shortly after launch.
Suspected Insider Activity
ZachXBT, a well-known blockchain investigator, pointed out the unusual wallet activity in an X post shortly after FLOCKA debuted.
He disclosed that the wallet address was used to quickly disperse approximately 40% of the coin’s supply to multiple addresses, implying intentional market manipulation.
“Interesting how a fresh wallet funded via exchange sniped ~40% of the supply and dispersed to alt wallets.”
Celeb Coin Conga Line
Bubblemaps, an onchain visual analytics platform, also remarked on the debut, reporting “huge insider activity” after 40% of the supply was “sniped” before Flame’s release.
Speaking with Cointelegraph, Bubblemap CEO Nicolas Vaiman criticized the trend of celebrities appearing in the crypto space:
“Many former celebrities are trying to get a second life by jumping into crypto. Most of the time, they show a clear lack of knowledge about crypto while also being very suspicious onchain.”
He highlighted that at 8:00 a.m. Central European Time, one wallet owned 40% of the supply, which was then distributed to 60 wallets 30 minutes later. He added:
“This is no accident.”
Flame’s Questionable History
ZachXBT mentioned Flame’s previous involvement in promoting fraudulent crypto projects and concealed paid promotions on Ethereum in 2021 and 2022.
Flame revealed on an X space that he had been “studying crypto since 2001,” despite the modern concept of cryptocurrencies did not originate with Bitcoin in 2008.
One X user pointed out that Flame did not release the FLOCKA contract address until the coin’s market cap reached “$5MM,” raising the question of whether crypto influencers “bark or ansem” were responsible.