CoinMarketCap Academy dives into the rise of ben.eth's memecoin empire — a tale of hype and controversy which convinced many investors to make some questionable choices.
A Crypto Twitter influencer that goes by the name “ben.eth” is the latest persona to go viral in the space. Ben.eth is a controversial figure that keeps riding the waves of the memecoin mania. This article will explain who Ben.eth is and what the story is behind the tokens he has launched.
Who Is Ben.eth?
A part of the story of ben.eth was covered in this thread by Jack Niewold:
Ben.eth was a fairly little-known NFT influencer when memecoin season kicked off with PEPE. In the aftermath of PEPE, hundreds of copycats popped up, as people tried to cash in on the memecoin pump. One of these copycats was BEN.
However, BEN was not just any memecoin.
It was launched by ben.eth. Back then, he had around 15K followers on his influencer account. BEN really took off when Bitboy (Ben Armstrong), another controversial influencer (but with a massive following), endorsed the coin:
This caused BEN to rally. However, Uniswap banned BEN from its front end, although the token remained tradeable at the back end. Despite the bumpy ride BEN took, ben.eth gathered enough attention and launched another memecoin called PSYOP.
PSYOP really took off, thanks to Andrew Tate’s rant. Even though Tate denied any affiliation to the token and later disavowed “shitcoins,” the damage was done:
What made PSYOP particularly “unusual” is the fact that the presale was run by ben.eth alone. Precisely, by people sending funds to his address for a “pre-sale” of the token. The success of PSYOP was further fueled by an airdrop for existing BEN holders.
Since three tokens make a charm, Ben.eth ran the same playbook for a new token called LOYAL, promising PSYOP holders future rewards:
Ben Armstrong also endorsed LOYAL, claiming it would be the token of a DEX-to-come that focuses entirely on memecoins:
It remains to be seen how true this is. It did not stop Bitboy from coining the term “memefi” and promising that LOYAL will “change the game.”
And that was still not the final memecoin, as ben.eth endorsed DAVE, another memecoin he did not launch personally:
And if you think it ends there, wrong again. Ben.eth also endorsed an NFT collection called the Nakamigos, which is not officially affiliated to any of the memecoins launched:
Is Ben.eth Done Yet?
According to Ben Armstrong, there will be no fourth memecoin:
But Ben.eth claims that “curated token drops” are the future and is cryptically hinting at another potential memecoin called FINALE:
What Are CT Reactions to Ben.eth?
Unsurprisingly, many have called ben.eth’s memecoins a classic pyramid scheme, although Ben himself vehemently denies that:
Either way, it seems to be where crypto is headed at the moment:
Others seem to be fine with the hyper-risky trading approach of sending money to an unknown wallet:
Be that as it may, the ben.eth presale wallet has raised over $20M in ETH at the time of writing. It seems like the finale of the latest memecoin saga is not in yet.
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