Behind Fox News republican Caitlyn Jenner’s crypto cash grab
Caitlyn Jenner launched a crypto meme coin on Memorial Day, but it was hard to tell if it was legitimate or a hack. The Fox News contributor, ex-reality TV star, and former Olympian posted multiple endorsements to two social media accounts, Instagram and X, but her fan base quickly flagged the videos as possibly fake. First, fans questioned the irregular quality of her video endorsement, which she soon remedied with a more authentic-looking video. Second, they questioned the website linked in her endorsement, Pump.fun. The website is a gambling-oriented kickstarter for meme coins. It gamifies the initial coin offering (ICO) of a token on Solana using a bonding curve for initial distribution. Up-only bonding curves ( and they are always up-only in crypto ) force buyers, in the absence of a real bid/ask market, to pay ever-higher prices for each subsequent purchase. BitClout was the first mainstream crypto project to popularize bonding curves, forcing fans to pay ever-higher prices ...