Foreign KOLs collapse, is getting rich an "conspiracy" we don't understand?

Author: Cookie, BlockBeats

Throughout the cryptocurrency space, KOLs who achieve "big results" and gain numerous followers, whose tweets and on-chain transactions can create a strong following effect for a particular token, are often accompanied by much controversy.

This time, two KOLs pushed to the forefront of the storm, one of whom may only be familiar to meme players in the Chinese community, while the other is a well-known veteran KOL familiar to crypto players. What event has brought these two KOLs into the spotlight?

Lexapro: "Water Pipe Gang" Peripheral Member and Moonshot "Talks Break Down"

The English name of the "Water Pipe Gang" is "LA Vape Cabal," which originated from a Texas Hold'em live stream organized by the major KOL @notthreadguy in the English-speaking community. Members include FaZe Clan co-founder FaZe Banks, DeGods founder Frank, Malcolm from deLabs (the parent company of DeGods), and crypto KOLs including threadguy, rasmr, and OGshoots.

There has always been much controversy surrounding the "Water Pipe Gang." They have been accused of using their fans to exit liquidity and manipulating the meme coin market, especially during the "Argentinian Coin" $LIBRA, where they faced accusations of insider involvement from players.

Lexapro is seen as a member of the "Water Pipe Gang," a belief shared by both Chinese and English-speaking players. Some say he chats in a small group of the "Water Pipe Gang":

In early June, @tier1haterr accused Lexapro and the "Water Pipe Gang" of bundling sales on the token $DEAL launched by the Believe ecosystem:

He presented a picture showing the evidence chain he collected:

First, the initial contact between RYDER RIPPS and Lexapro was made public due to a malfunction in Twitter's private messaging feature, leading Lexapro to respond on Twitter. After the deal was completed, Frank, the founder of the NFT project DeGods, purchased $780.5 when the token's market cap was only $24,600. Threadguy bought $3,000 when the market cap was $300,000 (this address eventually profited about $13,000). Lexapro bought $4,720 when the market cap was $700,000 (and subsequently increased his position when the market cap reached $1.5 million and $1.26 million, totaling about $16,700), and published a long tweet promoting the token when its market cap reached $1 million.

On-chain data shows that Lexapro's holdings were eventually transferred to another wallet and sold off, resulting in a loss of about 57%. @tier1haterr believes that in this instance of wrongdoing by the "Water Pipe Gang," Lexapro played the role of a "scapegoat," as 70% of the profits from the Believe ecosystem belong to the creators (this portion of the profit may have been colluded) and the fact that "Water Pipe Gang" members profited exists, so he does not consider Lexapro innocent.

The market cap of $DEAL peaked at $2 million before plummeting, and is now only $97,000.

Earlier, Lexapro was also accused of manipulating $HOUSE, and because he always defended himself, when the debacle involving $RICH and Moonshot occurred, the English-speaking community reacted with a sense of "this time we have solid evidence against you"------

“You don’t hate these people enough”

In the exposed chat records below, Lexapro and Moonshot employee sidewinder staged a "blame-shifting" farce.

First, according to the content of the conversation, both parties had previously communicated about the conspiracy to pump $RICH launched by Moonshot. In the image above, Lexapro first attacked sidewinder------I think you haven’t fulfilled your prior commitments, the rise and fall of $RICH depends on Moonshot, not me.

Sidewinder retorted------No, this is not Moonshot's coin, this is your coin. You have bundled it and controlled the supply, you brought people in.

Lexapro got angry------I think you are very disrespectful to me, watch your emotions, your next sentence will determine the fate of Moonshot Launchpad.

Sidewinder's final statement emphasized that Moonshot would not pump for him, he should handle it himself.

During a brief rebound when $RICH fell from its peak to a market cap of $11 million, Lexapro heavily promoted $RICH:

"Many big players/institutions are involved, this is a critical moment for Moonshot Launchpad. If you believe Moonshot can succeed, then buy $RICH, targeting a market cap of $100 million. The project team is working, and a large number of marketing activities will be launched soon; this should be the bottom" (Image source: @tier1haterr)

Lexapro's response was lengthy, too long for one screenshot, but the gist was that he was also losing money, Moonshot did not fulfill their promise to pump, they did nothing, so it’s not my fault, it’s Moonshot that messed everything up:

His response was not well received. A tweet from @tstar_frr1 even dragged another foreigner, pow, into the mix:

"They will bundle $RICH to reach a market cap of $1 million and then start promoting it to their fans. According to this screenshot, pow shared Lexapro's tweet promoting $RICH in his Telegram channel and stated 'get rich quick.' I asked a wallet analyst, and he said these people profited over $683,000 from $RICH. If you continue to buy their scam tokens, I can only wish you good luck" (Image source: @tstar_frr1)

Although the disclosed information cannot help us piece together the complete picture of the event, it is certain that $RICH was once a "conspiracy scheme" that Moonshot and at least Lexapro wanted to execute. In the end, their talks broke down, and the unfortunate ones were the retail investors.

The most affected by this incident are the $RICH community and the entire Crypto community. In a market where liquidity for meme coins is already poor and narratives are almost ignored, this incident being confirmed is yet another huge blow to the confidence of meme coin players------they always tell us to build diligently, they always tell us to believe in certain things, but can the trust and effort we put in really lead us to the other side?

Why are players so angry? Because everyone has their favorite meme coins and their own stories they believe in, many people think or hope to achieve their results through their beliefs. Regardless of who is right or wrong, it is always the retail investors who get hurt, and the reason for the injury is the absurd uneven distribution of spoils between KOLs and project parties, even though they have already taken the "shortcut."

To conclude the Lexapro incident with a small anecdote------he was kicked out of the $HOUSE large group. He stated in a tweet reply that he was completely unaware, "I helped you so much, I am very sad."

GCR: Accused of Bribing Binance Listing Team and Hacking Palm Beach Research Servers to Obtain Report Content in Advance

Just as the situation with Lexapro calmed down, another wave arose in the crypto circle. On the evening of July 6, @beniduboss tweeted accusations against GCR:

"I can’t take it anymore, there’s a KOL (GCR) who is worshipped like a god, but over 90% of the money is earned illegally. Bribing the Binance listing team for insider information, hacking into Palm Beach Research's AWS servers to know in advance which coins their next report will mention, establishing a private Discord channel to steal others' ideas to achieve his 'prophecies,' disappearing, and then occasionally returning to make price predictions just because they have a nine-figure long position."

This accusation currently lacks evidence, with only some suspected chat records of GCR in Discord posted by @beniduboss:

A suspected GCR user claimed to have obtained report content 12 hours in advance by hacking into Palm Beach Research's AWS servers and bought in, then dumped on bots. Palm Beach Research is a crypto research group led by Teeka Tiwari, selling research reports to crypto users, which was influential years ago. Currently, the Palm Beach Research website is inaccessible, and their official Twitter has not been updated since April last year.

A suspected GCR user claimed he could obtain every Binance listing message in the first half of 2021.

Subsequently, tweets appeared to help GCR counter the accusations:

@IamNomad stated that the above Discord screenshot was made by a user around 2022 after suffering significant losses, attempting to accuse the exchange of fraud/insider trading, and that user deleted his Twitter account about six months later. This tweet has since been deleted by @IamNomad, who stated he did not want to stir up more controversy.

Overall, the current accusations against GCR lack strong evidence. However, yesterday, whistleblower @beniduboss tweeted that he received doxxing and death threats in Twitter DMs, stating that this was unrelated to GCR but possibly from a fanatical GCR supporter. Previously, his related tweets had also faced a barrage of bot comments.

Conclusion

The KOL group always reminds me of my favorite drink "Monster"------it can be refreshing when you're tired, but when you're really sleepy, you still have to sleep. Who would truly rely on energy drinks to say goodbye to sleep?

When investing, you can look at KOL's statements for psychological comfort when confused, and enjoy their interesting remarks for a laugh, but to truly make money, you still have to rely on yourself; only you can be trusted.

Any KOL could "collapse," but I hope that does not mean "collapse" for you, because in your heart, KOLs have never had a "house."