Elon Musk and McDonald’s Twitter exchange has led to the creation of a likely ‘pump and dump’’ meme coin that’s sure to rob millions from unsuspecting crypto investors.
On the 25th of January, McDonald’s tweeted:
how are you doing people who run crypto twitter accounts
— McDonald's (@McDonalds) January 24, 2022
Never one to shy away from an unusual stunt Elon Musk responded tweeting:
I will eat a happy meal on tv if @McDonalds accepts Dogecoin
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 25, 2022
McDonald’s replied:
only if @tesla accepts grimacecoin https://t.co/CQrmAFelHR pic.twitter.com/to9HmYJhej
— McDonald's (@McDonalds) January 25, 2022
This completely innocent joke is where problems germinated.
Elon Musk hasn’t hidden his love for meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin.
In fact, Musk has backed Dogecoin’s potential over other major players like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
However, Dodgecoins merits aside, McDonald’s joke about “Grimacecoin” has spawned a bonanza of tokens that are either called or abbreviations of Grimacecoin.
It’s highly plausible most if not all these new “Grimacecoin” listings are pump and dump scams that will hurt unsuspecting investors.
Of note, the biggest GrimaceCoin which is on the Binance Smart Chain and has 8000 Twitter followers (it’s uncertain how many are real) has experienced a 6000 per cent price rise.
Even more concerningly the coin was created anonymously which many pundits on Reddit have warned to be a major rug pull.
A rug pull being when the creators of a crypto token rapidly cash out their coins for real money-draining the liquidity pool from the exchange, torpedoing the price of the asset permanently.
Though possible the most ominous sign yet that this is a financial trojan horse, every transaction is taxed 10 per cent.
If events unfold as many expect, GrimaceCoin holders could suffer the same fate as the ill-fated investors in the Squid Coin scam.
Squid Coin was inspired by the popular Netflix show Squid Game which had soaring prices but when push came to shove retail investors were unable to exit their positions due to illiquidity.
Instead, the creators of Squid Coin cashed out en masse running away with millions of dollars.
In the meantime, onlookers and investors alike can only wait and see if Grimacecoin becomes just another example of scammers utilising popular social trends to rug pull.
