Many investors traded the GUNIT meme coin believing it was endorsed by rapper 50 Cent, who had several promotional posts on his X account, created through Pump.fun.
The coin quickly gained trading volume and reached a market capitalisation peak of $6.5 million within an hour before being exposed as a scam.
The assumption that 50 Cent was behind the meme coin seemed plausible given recent trends where celebrities like Iggy Azalea have launched and promoted their own tokens.
Azalea's MOTHER (CRYPTO:MOTHER) coin, for example, now has a market cap of about $57 million.
The scam was sophisticated, with fraudulent posts referencing 50 Cent's cognac brand and drawing comparisons to other celebrity-associated meme coins, such as Martin Shkreli's DJT on Solana (CRYPTO:SOL), initially linked to Donald Trump.