Former New York City mayor Eric Adams is facing scrutiny over a cryptocurrency memecoin after an apparent "rug pull" scam in which he removed his initial investment approximately 30 minutes after launch on Monday, causing the coin's value to crash.
Adams's coin, known as the NYC Token, was launched to "address antisemitism and anti-Americanism," the former mayor claimed at a Times Square press conference on Monday.
This appeared to be a swipe made against his mayoral successor, Zohran Mamdani, who revoked NYC's policy on following the IHRA's definition of antisemitism shortly after taking office.
The token has a maximum supply of one billion tokens, and surged to a $600 million market cap. Following the apparent "rug pull," the value fell to approximately $110 million, according to Solscan data.
The creator of the coin sent 80 million coins to an account, adding the token as liquidity on a decentralized exchange, Yahoo Finance reported.
This account then removed $2.43 million in USDC, a cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar, before adding back $1.5 million, leaving $932,000 unaccounted for, the report noted.
'Bitcoin mayor': Adams viewed as heavily pro-cryptocurrency during mayoral tenure
During his tenure as mayor, Adams was a frequent promoter of cryptocurrency, including pushing for NYC to become the "crypto capital of the world," CoinDesk reported.
He took his first three paychecks of his tenure in bitcoin, which led advocates to call him the "Bitcoin mayor," the report added.