After going nine months and counting without a fight, Khamzat Chimaev had to find a way to keep the money rolling in. Unfortunately, it involved scamming all of his fans.
On Tuesday, the undefeated Chechen star took to social media to ask which cryptocurrency he should invest in. The next day, he announced the launch of his own themed meme coin appropriately named “SMASH.”
“There is one crypto coin about me. They call it SMASH,” Chimaev said in a video on X. “Let’s ‘smash’ together guys. Let’s go.”
Sadly, for anyone who actually bought the digital currently, SMASH quickly plummeted to zero. According to GeckoTerminal, the coin was down 96% within 24 hours of Chimaev’s message to “smash” on SMASH.
It had all the signs of a classic crypto pump-and-dump per a report from Decrypt.
Pump and dump schemes in the world of cryptocurrency typically involve celebrities investing in a token, heavily promoting that token to spur a price increase, and subsequently dumping their holdings at a significant profit. This often results in a heavy decline or even collapse of a token’s price, impacting unsuspecting holders (h/t Chain Analysis).
#UFC star Khamzat Chimaev is getting exposed for pump and dumping a crypto coin and stealing millions
pic.twitter.com/763VVHEKsf
— MMA UNCENSORED (@MMAUNCENSORED1) July 5, 2024
According to Decrypt, Blockchain detective ZachXBT was quickly able to connect the “insider wallets” that dumped most of the token’s supply directly to the fighter’s development team wallets, suggesting this was nothing more than an orchestrated scam.
“Using timing analysis confirms 71% insider and dev team wallets [are] directly linked as they were funded by [the] same address on Ethereum,” ZachXBT explained.
Chimaev has since deleted his video on X along with anything else tying him to the crypto scam.
Khamzat Chimaev’s UFC Hype Train has slowed considerably
Khamzat Chimaev was scheduled to return to the Octagon for the first time in 2024 at UFC Saudi Arabia last month. Less than two weeks before his main event clash with Robert Whittaker, ‘Borz’ became “violently ill” and was forced to bow out of the fight.
Since storming into the UFC in 2020 and winning three fights in the span of two months, the Chechen has only competed twice in the last two years, his most recent coming against former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman at UFC 284 in October. The ‘Nigerian Nightmare’ stepped in on short notice to replace Chimaev’s original opponent, Paulo Costa, and surrendered a majority decision.
