Celeb Crypto Handler Takes $380K for Fake Iggy Azalea Meme Coin

After helping Caitlyn Jenner launch a meme coin and allegedly stealing “lots of money” from her, as Jenner claimed, crypto promoter Sahil Arora quickly moved onto a new celebrity subject: rapper Iggy Azalea.

But Azalea launched her own token instead of working with Arora, slamming the promoter in a series of tweets Tuesday. That didn’t stop Arora from apparently taking in $380,000 worth of funds in a presale for an Iggy Azalea token of his own—and it still hasn’t been airdropped to those who sent funds, as of this writing.

Through his Telegram group, XO, Arora teased that Iggy Azalea was to be his next celebrity partner for a meme coin to launch through Pump.fun. Quickly, he dropped an address prompting people to send Solana (SOL) to enter a presale for the soon-to-launch token.

Initially only open to 100 wallets, he soon expanded that tally to 700 and eventually 1,000. Now, the presale wallet holds over $380,000 worth of crypto—but those who bought in say they haven’t received their tokens yet amid mixed signals around Azalea’s own MOTHER token.

On Tuesday, Arora dropped a Pump.fun link in his Telegram group for his IGGY token with the promise of an endorsement tweet from the Australian rapper on its way. Then he posted on Twitter, which wasn’t warmly received—particularly after Azalea herself said she’d opted to launch her own token instead, and wasn’t collaborating with Arora.

“Are you going to send the presale tokens out???” one Twitter user asked. “I sent two Solana in the presale, what's gonna happen to that?” another cried out. “While everyone is asking about [the] airdrop, I'm wondering where is the post from Iggy Azalea herself LMAO?” yet another questioned.

"She’s going to [Twitter] Spaces with me at $10 million [market cap]," Arora claimed on Telegram, while IGGY sat at a $2 million market cap. But before his token could even reach $3 million, Azalea took to Twitter to launch her own token, MOTHER, without Arora.

“Don’t disappoint your mother,” the rapper posted, followed by the token address. “Sahil baby, take your L and go already.”

In response, the crypto promoter took to Telegram to move the goal posts regarding the airdrop deal—which was originally promised prior to the token’s public launch. Instead, he offered automatic allowlist placement on future projects for those who paid in, a 10% cut of profits from upcoming token launches, and an airdrop of IGGY after it hits a $10 million market cap instead.

Over the next hour, according to DEX Screener, the IGGY token dropped from a $1.35 million market cap to a measly $160,000, tumbling even further to $55,000 at the time of writing. 

Azalea then took to Twitter Spaces to tell her side of the story. According to multiple sources who were there, the musician claimed that Arora spoke with her manager, trying to convince them to launch a token. But after researching Arora’s background, they opted to proceed without him. Arora appeared to have caught wind of this, and front-ran them with his own IGGY token.

Off the back of these Twitter Spaces, the Australian rapper became the darling of Crypto Twitter, with many notable personalities claiming that she sounded like she actually understood the space and wasn’t just in it for a quick cash grab.

Arora, for his part, responded to the controversy by teasing another drop and attempting to flex on the haters by showcasing his apparent wealth.

Decrypt reached out to Arora multiple times ahead of publication but did not immediately receive a response.

Azalea has thus far come out ahead in the perception battle with Arora, based on broad Crypto Twitter sentiment, though her own token launch hasn’t been without drama. Crypto analytics firm Bubblemaps pointed to apparent “insider” trading on MOTHER ahead of her tweet announcement, with traders grabbing 20% of the supply beforehand and making millions in profits by selling.

The rapper told pseudonymous on-chain analyst okHOTSHOT on a Twitter Spaces that her token was sniped by automated trading bots the moment it launched. One wallet in particular appears to be a Pump.fun sniper bot that purchases large amounts of freshly launched tokens.

Bubblemaps didn’t appear to be satisfied with the explanations, however, finishing its Twitter thread by quote-tweeting a chart that highlights the poor performance of many celebrity-endorsed tokens from the past.

"More celebrity tokens will come," the company warned, "but remember that most of them end up worthless and are often plagued by insider trading."

Edited by Andrew Hayward