GMGM!
We’ve had a few wild stories unfold over the last couple of days, and I couldn’t resist but toss in my two cents. Without any unnecessary introductory rambling, I’m gonna get right into them.
Checkmate, Inevitable West
Pretty sure you must have stumbled upon the “Inevitable West” X account at least once while doomscrolling. The creator claims that the account is run from England and defends the so-called Western values and culture. Elon Musk follows it.
Well, it has a pretty crazy backstory. The identity of the guy who runs the page has been uncovered. He’s allegedly an Indian crypto scammer. I was talking to Emiri about this the other day, and while keyboard smashing, he exclaimed,
“Basically this Indian dude made a bunch of larp nationalist accounts. Like complete racism against immigrants including Indians and all that kinda very very extreme right wing propaganda. He has a bunch of accounts, but turns out he funnels it into his Indian crypto scam account.”
The blunder
The dude, Saurabh Chandrakar, is associated with the Mahadev betting app. He is one of the main promoters. Remember all the “juice seller to millionaire scammer” headlines? Yup, he’s that guy only.
He, by mistake, ended up posting a Mahadev promotion tweet on his main Inevitable West account and asked people to head to Pump.Fun to buy the token.
Chandrakar has been under house arrest in Dubai since quite some time. He was detained on the heels of Interpol’s Red Notice.
The Enforcement Directorate in India wants Chandrakar extradited. He faces money laundering-related charges for defrauding investors. The illicit proceeds are estimated to be worth around ₹6,000 crore (~$680 million).
After laundering so much money, what would one do? Build castles? Buy islands? Purchase sports teams?
Well, this guy threw a lavish wedding in Dubai in February 2023. Approximately ₹200 crore "in cash" was spent. Around 17 Bollywood celebrities were flown in from India in chartered flights and performed at the wedding.
Ranbir Kapoor and a bunch of other celebs found themselves in a fix when the case was unearthed, and they were eventually summoned by officials.
Living in denial?
Chandrakar addressed the issue on his Twitter account. He steered away from all the accusations, but ended up deleting the tweet after a community note was affixed.
Like any other normal day, tweets continue to be posted on the Inevitable West account.
Brain-computer weapons: Ether edition
A pseudonymous programmer ‘Hu Lezhi’ donated $2 million worth of Ether to WikiLeaks earlier this week. He left on-chain messages asserting that the Chinese military is using nano computer chips to control citizens, and he is allegedly one of the victims.
“I will choose to leave the world” if…
I translated his messages, and while reading it, I could literally feel goosebumps. Phrases like “increasing their harm to me,” “I have been very painful,” and “I have completely lost my dignity as a human being” reflect the maltreatment he’s been going through.
To top it all, he’s also asserted that if he ends up becoming a victim of the final stage, he’ll “choose to leave this world.”
This is sheer unsympathetic torture.
The programmer sent 711.5 ETH to WikiLeaks via five transfers between February 10 and 17. He parallelly sent 603 ETH to Ether’s burn address, 700 ETH to a “ndao.eth” wallet, and 33 ETH to an unknown ”Grant Provider” address.
Up until the time of writing, more than 2,047 Ether [worth $5.6 million] has been transferred.
Is Portnoy losing the plot?
If you read the first edition of the ‘WTF is happening in the trenches’ series, you’d know who Dave Portnoy is. (He’d gotten into a LIBRA deal with Kelsier’s Hayden Davis and was asked not to talk about it publicly).
Anyways, he went on to create a memecoin called Greed and sold a hugeeee chunk, triggering its collapse. On-chain analytics platform Lookonchain highlighted,
“Dave Portnoy created Greed and bought 357.92 million Greed (35.79% of the total supply). He sold all $357.92 million Greed in a single transaction, causing the price of Greed to crash by 99%. And he made ~$258k from Greed.”
The sequel
Right after, he launched GREED2, a 2.0 version of the token. He asked people not to invest in this “collectible coin” with more than what they can afford to lose. “It’ll be volatile,” he exclaimed.
Wanna guess what’s the memecoin’s picture/logo on Pump.Fun? An image of Fortune’s 2005 cover story titled, “Is Greed Still Good?” It features Michael Douglas (who played Gordon Gekko in Wall Street).
Bro justifies by saying:
So. Very. Messed. Up.
Mind you, Portnoy is also associated with the JAILSTOOL memecoin, even though he says he hasn't created it. While he ended up dumping GREED, Portnoy says that he ain’t gonna sell JAILSTOOL until it hits the $1 billion threshold. In his affirming words,
“I have literally only said I will not sell 1 coin. That coin is #jailstool until it hits 1 billion market cap. Everything else I’ve said I can sell. I’ve warned people. Told em not to buy. I don’t cash out. I’m 600k ish in the red. Yet people call me a scammer. This league.”
KAITO’s token goes live
Let’s get into serious biz: Kaito.
If you don’t know what the platform is all about, here's a quick refresher: Kaito delves into social media data to weigh market sentiment and presents it all via its visual dashboards.
Big tech platforms usually rain on users’ parades, no matter what. They tend to monopolize the value created by creators in one way or another, but Kaito brings back the power back to people’s hands, helping them retain that value.
This data analytics platform has now released its own native token. It’s basically tokenizing users’ attention.
Yap points were distributed to users based on their X posts. In turn, they were sorted using parameters like: relevance (proof-of-work), originality (proof-of-insight), and engagement based on “reputation” (proof-of-exchange).
Tokenomics: Looking beyond Yaps
A few hours back, the team rolled out the tokenomics. Alongside Yappers, a “wider community” that met “certain thresholds” received KAITO tokens. Evaluation factors included value alignment, long-term loyalty, governance participation, regional and emerging yapping, and on-chain participation.
The initial airdrop is (only) 10% (split between yaps, NFT holders, and the wider community). However, there’ll be future airdrop campaigns too, with 7.5% set aside for long-term creators.
Community members feel Kaito’s tokenomics “are 9/11” for everyone who thought they could retire by just tweeting.
Folks ain’t really really happy. On-chain investigator ‘Deebs DeFi,’ for instance, said,
“Overall, bit disappointed here. I was hoping KAITO would be more creative to reduce selling pressure instead of strict vesting terms. Also, 10% airdrop was on [the] lower end of my estimation.”
The token claim is live already. KAITO started trading at a $1 billion+ valuation. Kinda dope. It’ll be interesting to see what the future holds.
Bottom line
Well, that’s pretty much it for the second edition of the WTF series. Crypto is a fun and entertaining space to be in, but sometimes the unhingedness makes you cringe. To survive here, you just need to know where and when to draw the line. If you sort that out alone, you’ll be good.
Stay safe homies, I shall see y’all again soon with another bunch of quirky stories.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organization, individual, or entity mentioned herein. This article is intended for commentary and informational purposes only. It does not seek to defame, harm, or disrespect any individual, organization, or entity. All references are made based on publicly available information and are presented in the spirit of constructive discussion and analysis.
