Crypto developer made $30M shilling celebrity meme coins: Bubblemaps

UPDATE: After ZachXBT pointed out the error in the investigation, Bubblemaps posted an update on the situation in a new X post stating that one of the addresses (7ci23) that they attributed to Sahil was actually a Poloniex hot wallet. Bubblemaps stated that Sahil’s profits are not $26 million but closer to $5 million. They also recognized the error and ensured that they would tighten their internal peer review process to prevent such mistakes in the future.

Blockchain data provider Bubblemaps has released an investigation report on serial meme coin launcher and developer Sahil Arora. Sahil reportedly bagged over $30 million by launching celebrity tokens on Solana. However, on-chain investigator ZachXBT disagrees with the data in the report.

According to an investigation report by Bubblemaps, Sahil has launched tokens for several celebrities, with the majority of the coins dumping to zero. Sahil, who currently resides in India, reportedly used his follower base to onboard celebrities into crypto.

Some of the famous celebrities that he has issued tokens for include Floyd Mayweather, Caitlyn Jenner, Iggy Azalea, Jason Derulo, Amber Rose, Lil Pump, Davido, Sunny Leon, Bobbi Althoff, Trippie Redd, etc.

Bubblemaps: Sahil dumped the tokens as soon as tweets went live

Leveraging pump.fun and his millions of followers on Instagram, Sahil reportedly DM’ed celebrities with an offer for a large payment and asked them to tweet the contract address of the token.

According to Bubblemaps, Sahil followed a pattern of dumping as soon as the tweet went live, as he owned nearly all the supply of the token. Sahil leverages the celebrity audience as his exit liquidity.

Bubblemaps has identified over 40 crypto addresses that are linked to Sahil. Interestingly, he held anywhere between 25-40% of the supply in one address and sent the SOL after the sale of the token to a main address.

2024 has been notably lucrative for Sahil, as the developer has bagged $26.4 million so far until August. In the months of January, February, March, April, May, June, July, and August, Sahil made $3M, $1.8M, $3.2M, $2.5M, $4.8M, $2.5M, July $2M, and August $6.6M, respectively.

Bubblemaps also identified that Sahil is launching tokens daily on Pumpfun, where he buys tokens for 10 SOL and dumps them quickly after shilling them on his Telegram channel.

ZachXBT disagrees with Bubblemaps report

On-chain sleuth ZachXBT was quick enough to post a tweet below the report, disagreeing with the profit numbers shared by Bubblemaps. “Sorry the math for this seems incorrect there is no way Sahil made $26M check the liquidity on these coins,” ZachXBT said.

Ya I found the issue with your investigation @bubblemaps you counted this address as Sahil’s when in reality it is an exchange hot wallet for Poloniex.

7Ci23i82UMa8RpfVbdMjTytiDi2VoZS8uLyHhZBV2Qy7

Not sure how you arrived at the conclusion this was his normal address since… pic.twitter.com/px3w88sYM2

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) August 14, 2024

ZachXBT also shared an estimate that Sahil would have earned less than $5 million and most likely $2-$3 million. The on-chain sleuth pointed out that Bubblemaps made a mistake in their investigation by counting a Poloniex hot wallet address as Sahil’s.

ZachXBT also called out Bubblemaps for not making any corrections to their post even after being proven to be entirely wrong.

The report comes amidst the rising popularity of celebrity meme coins in 2024. As Solana based meme coins have been gaining traction, celebrity meme coins have also been on the rise, with most of them ending up as a pump and dump.