**Celebrities’ Token Launches Losing Momentum?**
Since Trump, celebrity token launches seem to have become a new business model. On March 2, renowned retired football star Ronaldinho announced the launch of his personal token, $STAR10, on the BSC chain.
Under the shadow of a sluggish market, despite a peak circulating market value of $32 million, the anticipated buying frenzy did not materialize. Instead, numerous conspiracy theories about the token surfaced on social media, including rumors about a Shenzhen-based token issuance team, an unlocked funding pool, retained minting rights, and insiders cashing out early. Even Binance founder CZ, who shared the launch information, found himself under fire from users.
Is the business model behind this celebrity token frenzy truly a one-way ticket to wealth?
**Football Genius Reduced to a Harvesting Tool? Doubts Surrounding Professional Team Management**
Ronaldinho, once hailed as the most gifted Brazilian football star of all time, is affectionately known as “Little Ronaldo” by fans. Throughout his career, he was beloved by fans and was dubbed a “football magician.” However, achieving fame at a young age, lacking self-discipline, and indulging in a life of excess led to the ruin of his professional career. After squandering his wealth, he turned to leveraging his fame for financial gain. Like many talented athletes from humble beginnings, Little Ronaldo unfortunately chose a similar narrative.
After attempting various ways to earn money, the rapid harvesting potential of the crypto industry seemed to be his better choice. On February 22, Little Ronaldo tweeted, “Here, cryptocurrency looks good,” beginning to tease his token launch plan. However, due to the continuing downturn in the crypto market, the token was not officially launched until ten days later. During this ten-day period, the crypto market saw significant declines, with the previously hot Solana chain showing signs of weakness, while the BSC chain attempted to become the new MEME hotspot amid CZ’s frequent interactions. Little Ronaldo’s final choice suggests that a team well-versed in the dynamics of the crypto market may have been strategizing behind him.
On February 28, Twitter user @R10coin_ revealed that a Shenzhen-based token issuance team was behind Little Ronaldo’s token launch. This whistleblower claimed to represent another professional token issuance company that initially negotiated a $6 million collaboration agreement with Little Ronaldo for the token sale. After another Shenzhen-based team intercepted the deal with an offer of $10 million, the whistleblower chose to expose the matter, presenting email communications and documents signed by Little Ronaldo. The community generally views this incident as a black-eats-black farce, but such internal manipulations have become commonplace, reminiscent of the previous token debacle involving President Milei that exposed similar behind-the-scenes dealings. As of March 4, the whistleblower’s Twitter account has been suspended.
Since the user did not release more substantive insider information, the details about the team behind Little Ronaldo’s token remain unclear. According to PANews investigations, the official website domain for the $STAR10 token is hosted by the well-known domain service provider GoDaddy, and it has two deployed IP addresses. These two IPs, upon reverse lookup, are traced back to Amazon cloud servers, which have resolved over 80,000 domain names, making it impossible to prove that they are controlled by the same entity.
Interestingly, among the list of resolved domains for this IP, another well-known MEME coin, PNUT, appears. PNUT was also one of the MEME coins listed on Binance last year. However, based on the existing evidence chain, there is no direct proof indicating that the issuance of $STAR10 is backed by the alleged conspiracy group mentioned on social media.
**Contract Conceals Intricacies: Backdoor Permissions Trigger Trust Crisis**
Nevertheless, during the token issuance process, there seems to be a lingering sense of insincerity surrounding the launch of the $STAR10 token. According to monitoring by GoPlus Security, the contract owner retains the right to burn tokens at will, and the funding pool’s lock-up period is only one month.
⚠️ SECURITY ALERT ⚠️ @10Ronaldinho’s STAR10 coin has a serious security risk! GoPlus discovered that the owner can burn ANY holder’s tokens at will. Since ownership has not been renounced, all tokens are at risk of being destroyed without warning. To @10Ronaldinhoteam: Please… pic.twitter.com/XLrU671nbi — GoPlus Security (@GoPlusSecurity) March 3, 2025
This reserved backdoor operation led many users to suspect that the project team was preparing for a harvest. Consequently, this sparked collective outrage on social media. Binance founder CZ, initially unaware of this flaw, retweeted Little Ronaldo’s token tweet and stated that this action was not an endorsement, but merely a gratitude for choosing to launch on the BNB Chain. However, he soon faced backlash from users.
Perhaps under community pressure, the Little Ronaldo team subsequently stated on Twitter that they had relinquished minting rights and extended the lock-up period to 255 years, until 2281. Yet, this last-minute fix seemingly did not gain much acceptance from the community. As of March 4, the number of addresses holding the token was approximately 9,500, far less than TRUMP’s 640,000 or LIBRA’s 27,000.
**Insider Trading with 282x Profit: Was There Early Positioning by Insiders?**
Additionally, insider trading has frequently emerged as a tactic in celebrity token launches, and similar signs were observed during the issuance of $STAR10. According to Onchain Lens, an insider purchased 20 million $STAR10 tokens for 49 BNB (valued at $29,000) before the token launch. As of March 4, this address had sold $350,000 worth of tokens and still held over $2.6 million worth of unsold tokens.
According to PANews calculations, this user’s average cost was about $0.0014, with a peak increase of approximately 282 times, and the maximum holding value could reach $8.26 million, nearly a quarter of the circulating market value. More suspiciously, Little Ronaldo’s token launch time was at 22:17 UTC on March 2, while this address made its purchase at 22:17:08, even earlier than the announcement. It remains unclear how this address’s user chose to invest $29,000 without confirming the token source. PANews found that the initial funds for this address came from a Binance hot wallet.
Overall, Little Ronaldo’s token launch appears to be yet another failed case. Similarly, NBA legend Scottie Pippen, who launched his token last August, saw his token $BALL reach a market value of only $4.5 million, with around 1,400 holders and a 24-hour trading volume of $2,300, resulting in just five transactions—truly a case of scattered feathers.
Moreover, the recently controversial LIBRA and MELANIA were also revealed to be orchestrated by conspiracy groups, leading people to become accustomed to such harvesting tactics and refrain from blindly purchasing. As of March 4, the market value of $STAR10 had dwindled to just $11.5 million, down 66% from its previous high. From an investment standpoint, celebrity tokens so far have been nearly a “total defeat.” For celebrities attempting to quickly monetize through crypto token issuance, this seemingly all-consuming harvesting model appears difficult to sustain.
This article is a collaborative repost from: PANews.