Controversial right-wing internet personality Andrew Tate is at again, with his latest ploy to farm online engagement as he awaits trial for rape and human trafficking charges: shilling Solana meme coins.
On Friday, the former kickboxer and self-proclaimed misogynist—who once disavowed crypto as a scam—began promoting various Solana tokens and posting racially incendiary statements on Twitter in rapid succession, creating a characteristically chaotic social media storm.
The havoc began when Tate first posted, early Friday, that he would “diamond hands” $1 million worth of random assets if he received a certain number of retweets on the post. “Diamond hands” is internet parlance for holding an asset long-term, regardless of price movement, due to conviction in the asset.
In short order, the post hit Tate’s engagement target, and the social media influencer posted “I WILL CRASH THE SOLANA NETWORK”—implying that he planned to buy up so many tokens on the chain that it crashed. (Solana currently executes about 1,900 transactions a second, according to Solscan.)
I WILL CRASH THE SOLANA NETWORK. pic.twitter.com/E0b0QYYW18
— Andrew Tate (@Cobratate) June 7, 2024
Tate then invited the degen hordes to shill their “junk” tokens at him, saying he would pick a select number to sweep up.
He soon claimed to have bought $10,000 of various Pump.fun Solana meme coins, including one mocking a Twitter user Tate denigrated and one disparaging pop singer Madonna. He also appeared to buy into a Germany-themed Solana token only after the token’s team agreed to refer to him as “Fuhrer,” the title strongly associated with Adolf Hitler.
Tate appears to have spent nowhere near that promised $1 million on investments yet, however. While he has routinely made lofty claims about his wealth and crypto investments in recent months—an essential component of his playboy image—his situation became considerably more precarious last year, when Romanian authorities accused him and his brother of rape, human trafficking, and forming an organized crime group to sexually exploit women.
In March, British authorities issued a separate arrest warrant for the Tate brothers on charges related to rape and sexual assault. Romanian authorities agreed to extradite the influencer only after the conclusion of his trial in their country.
Tate is currently in Romania awaiting trial. He is barred from leaving the country.
Edited by Andrew Hayward