Jenner, an American celeb, launched a new cryptocurrency called JENNER on Solana blockchain. It hooked my attention because it was not long before the news became a hot topic. In its first 24 hours of trading, it has scored over $100 million in trading volumes. That’s a huge number for something so new, but as I looked into it, I found a lot of confusion and skepticism surrounding this new token.
Link
Firstly, we need to know that Caitlyn Jenner’s X (formerly Twitter) account announced the launch of this token. When I first heard about it, my initial thought was “Is this real?” Many other people had the same reaction. Cryptocurrency world is no stranger to hacks and scams especially ones involving accounts of celebrities. There have been many cases in the past where social media accounts belonging to famous people were hacked into and used to promote fake tokens online. This history made me wonder if Jenner’s account might have been hacked too.
However, when such arrangements happen, social media sites are quick to remove them. But Jenner’s account continued advertising the token for hours in this case. That was unordinary and made me even more suspicious about it. One of the posts from Jenner’s account read “Nothing has been hacked” and another one said that they expected their market cap to hit $50M within 24hrs.
Nevertheless, these reassurances could not persuade market watchers. This skepticism wasn’t misplaced. In the past, US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had filed charges against some American celebrities who were promoting tokens. It still left me wondering whether this new business is genuine or not.
Jenner’s account uploaded a video six hours after the token was launched. She appeared to be talking about the token in the video saying it is real and calling on people to join hands with her on it if they wanted to be successful too.’ The post states explicitly that it is not ‘a deep fake’, which refers to a type of video manipulation that can make it appear as though someone is doing or saying something they aren’t actually doing or saying’. It went on further to indicate that within four hours of being issued, the coin had already reported trading volumes amounting to more than $113 million dollars. The words spoken by Jenner in this video were also simple: This is real; get onboard my new crypto currency.”
One more video featured Jenner’s manager, Sophia Hutchins who also confirmed the genuineness of the token and said she would be managing it. However, many users on social media still believed it could have been deep fake, a manipulated video intended to deceive viewers.
At this point I wasn’t sure what to believe. Although Jenner’s X account’ s active promotion of the token seemed convincing enough, I discovered that similar posts on her Instagram account had been deleted. This was an inconsistency that heightened my feeling of doubt. How could it be that one platform removed the posts while another left them intact if indeed the project was genuine?
I also noticed a prediction market on Polymarket where people were gambling on whether Jenner’s account had been hacked. Surprisingly, only 4% thought it was a hack despite the high volumes traded and constant promotion from her account. It showed how divided public opinion is.
Ultimately, I ended up with more questions than answers. Cryptocurrency is already complicated and full of unpredictability. This only increases the bewilderment and mystification surrounding the creation of a new token by a celebrity like Caitlyn Jenner. Is JENNER legitimate because of Jenner’s support, or just another sophisticated fraud capitalizing on her popularity? But for now, I will stay suspicious as this unfolds right before my eyes.
https://x.com/Caitlyn_Jenner/status/1795087110371713476?t=Zf39PcFpvo6lEVe3WV4bfg&s=19