Former Safemoon Advertising Chief Accused Of Working $12 Million Crypto Rip-off

Because the bitcoin market matures and digital property generate curiosity, widespread pump and dump techniques proliferate. One instance is Safemoon.

In such schemes, well-known people make the most of their prominence to advertise a cryptocurrency and so increase its value, whereas concurrently planning an enormous sell-off of their remaining provide of the coin on the “inflated” value.

Ben Phillips, a former Safemoon influencer, has been charged with orchestrating a $12 million pump and dump fraud. He’s accused of selling Safemoon by his affect whereas concurrently promoting thousands and thousands of tokens.

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SafeMoon has been embroiled in further controversy as YouTuber Stephen Findeisen, a.okay.a. “Coffeezilla,” makes the costs in opposition to Phillips, the corporate’s former chief advertising and marketing officer.

Making Thousands and thousands Of Bucks On Safemoon

Ben Phillips, a UK-based influencer greatest identified for his prank movies, has over 4 million YouTube subscribers and, like many different influencers, has been deeply immersed within the worlds of cryptocurrencies and NFTs.

Phillips has incessantly shared and spoken about Safemoon — an altcoin venture on the Binance Good Chain (BSC) — however this may very well be the supply of all of the problems.

Phillips was continuously promoting his Safemoon for thousands and thousands of {dollars}, in keeping with Coffeezilla’s probe, after pumping it by his social media networks and watching the value climb.

BTC whole market cap at $761.15 billion on the day by day chart | Supply: TradingView.com

Blowing His Cowl

Phillips revealed his pockets data with supporters in a Tweet on April 12 final yr, asking that they pay for his Starbucks. This allowed web sleuth Coffeezilla to research a tip he’d obtained as half of a bigger inquiry into the notorious fraudulent funding recreation token SafeMoon.

Moreover, the YouTuber included photographs of all tweets during which Phillips made comparable remarks, organized chronologically, in addition to particular details about his dumps and even vital BscScan URLs that monitor his transactions.

Phillips bought SafeMoon on PancakeSwap for $4 million in March and bought it for $16 million in December, in keeping with CoffeeZilla’s calculations – netting him a good-looking $12 million revenue.

Not So Secure

SafeMoon launched in March 2021 and instantly gained tens of 1000’s of %. Nevertheless, in December 2021, the staff launched a Model 2 contract at a unique contract handle, thereby terminating the Model 1 contract.

In the meantime, Phillips has eliminated nearly all of his posts and his Twitter deal with now seems to be as new as a daisy. He has usually used harsh language in his tweets, together with one in July final yr during which he wished a Safemoon whale would “be hit by a bus.”

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Featured picture from Watcher Guru, chart from TradingView.com