The Intriguing Story Of How A Small NFT Influencer Has Raised $7M In Just 72 Hours

Updated: 16 May 2023

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Reports have emerged that a little-known non-fungible token influencer has raised nearly $7 million from his own branded meme coin. The subject crypto and NFT influencer ‘eth.ben’ took advantage of the recent short meme coin minting madness that started last week.

In a May 15 blog post, wale.swoosh, an on-chain residence researcher at Azuki NFT collection, shared an intriguing story of how a small collector and NFT influencer, “Ben,” made millions of dollars after promoting his own-branded meme coin.

The Ben Saga:

How @eth_ben went from being a small NFT influencer to raising $6.9M USD in under 72 hours 🧵👇

(1/24) pic.twitter.com/MxOsB5Xmr1

— wale.moca 🐳 (@waleswoosh) May 15, 2023

Eth.ben Raises $7M In Just 72 Hours

Eth.ben is a pseudonymous Twitter user who has been an active crypto community member for over two years. Before being dismissed over public disputes, he was a member of various NFT communities, such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club and the Moonbirds.

Ben has been tweeting on and off non-fungible token and metaverse projects for the longest time, but he was not attracting massive attention. Moreover, Ben has not been involved in any scandal or controversies since he joined the crypto community sometime in 2021.

The little-known influencer ‘Ben’ began changing his personality last month, shortly after the start of the recent meme coin. He got enticed by popular meme coins such as $PEPE, which has recently seen an exponential market rally, leaving investors making head-scratching sums.

Earlier this month, Ben teamed up with his namesake YouTuber Ben “Bitboy” Armstrong, to launch his own-branded meme coin, $BEN. On May 5, 2023, the meme coin had raised 55 ETH from its presale across 329 wallets. In the beginning, the meme coin didn’t seem promising and was trending down.

Last week, Armstrong, one of several influencers being sued in a class action suit by investors who lost money when the FTX platform collapsed, began using his experience to promote their new ‘$BEN’ meme coin. As of Monday last week, its price had soared more than 300% in the morning, only to correct 200% a few hours later.

Is It A Scam, Rug Pull, Or Luck?

Inspired by his initial success, Eth. Ben decided to part ways with Ben Armstrong and launched his own meme coin dubbed $PYSOP alongside their joint meme coin, $BEN. The new meme coin gained massive adoption, and within an hour, he had raised more than $1 million.

Luckily, Eth.ben’s new meme coin, “$PYSOP,” coincided with the recent meme coin buzz driven by $PEPE and Milady coin. Mid last week, Twitter Boss Elon Musk created a short frenzy within the non-fungible token market after sharing a meme containing the instantly recognizable avatar of the popular Milady Maker NFT collection.

pic.twitter.com/4s6HwnCY74

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 10, 2023

Milady Maker’s NFT collection exploded more than 50%, carrying the rest of the NFT market with them to a height of $217 million in sales volume last week. Before the $PYSOP presale ended, Eth.ben had raised $6.9 million. The controversy now surrounds whether the life-changing sum he made was legit.

Does Eth.ben Have A Case To Answer?

The intriguing story of how Ben turned into a multi-millionaire in less than three days has attracted the attention of notable industry heads like Alexander Taub, the co-founder of Truth Labs. Taub has cited that Ben will likely face charges, including fraud, law class lawsuit, and selling unregistered securities.

The only way @eth_ben avoids charges of fraud, commingling rules, unregistered securities law, class action lawsuits, and a handful other things is to not issue a token & send back the money.

Even then it’s iffy bc people will lose money on gas and interest.

Then move out of…

— Alexander Taub (🔺👁🔺) (@ajt) May 15, 2023

Alexander Taub, the team leader behind the popular Goblintown NFT project, has received massive community backlash online over his sentiments. Many crypto Twitter users have blemished Taub’s remarks, with some describing him as “Ruggy” and “jealous.”

Do something productive instead of rugging goblintown and blaming it on the investors 🤡🤡

— LaFlame Jr. III (@PhoenicianOG) May 15, 2023

Its work notes that Goblintown has had a bad reputation in the past several months. Earlier this last month, the project changed the metadata of the Goblintown NFT collection without any warning, angering its holders and drawing sharp criticisms from the wider Web3 community. Its NFT holders described the metadata change as a slow rug pull.