Lionel Messi Promotes Obscure Meme Coin on Instagram, Leading to 350% Surge

Soccer legend Lionel Messi promoted Solana-based meme coin WATER on his Instagram story on Monday, prompting a 350% surge in the token’s price.
Messi shared an image displaying the token’s mascot, a cartoon glass of water, perched on his shoulder, with a link to the project’s Instagram page on Monday. WATER jumped from $0.00032 to $0.00146 in the two hours following the post, a surge of 356%.
WATER subsequently pulled back and sits at just over $0.001 at the time of writing, up 215.6% in the last 24 hours, according to data by CoinMarketCap. The token has a market cap of around $94 million and a 24-hour trading volume of slightly under $40 million.
The project’s website says WATER “aims to have a net-positive impact on real world with the help of charity,” though it doesn’t elaborate how. One of the exchanges it is available for purchase is Bitget, which may explain Messi’s apparent endorsement. The Argentinian Inter Miami star has been partnered with Bitget since October 2022.
Messi’s media relations team couldn’t be reached for a comment.
Several celebrities, including media personality Caitlyn Jenner and rapper Iggy Azalea, cashed in on meme coin season earlier this year, minting tokens on the Solana blockchain. Such activities were met with accusations that they were attempting to make a fast buck from unsuspecting followers.
As such, Messi’s post was met with skepticism from some commentators in the crypto community. Analyst @ericonomics wrote on X, “They will probably rug [pull] soon so make yourself a favour and don’t buy that sh*t.”
“Third token scam that Messi promotes,” he wrote. “The first one was Leafty, which was a rug (they removed the liquidity like 5 days later lol). The second one was Planet, an slow rug that is like -90% since that promotion.”
Subsequently, former Brazilian soccer superstar Ronaldinho seems to have promoted the project on Instagram, leading to a slight bump in the token’s price. He also couldn’t be reached for a comment.
Read More: Solana Meme Coin MEW’s Cat Character to Feature on Trending Telegram Mini Game
Edited by Aoyon Ashraf and Sheldon Reback.

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Jamie Crawley is a CoinDesk news reporter based in London.