The “Crypto Mayor” Faces Rug Pull Allegations
Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ pivot to crypto entrepreneurship has dissolved into chaos. Less than 24 hours after launching NYC Token ($NYC) on Solana, ostensibly to fund anti-hate initiatives, the project collapsed 80% from its peak following a massive liquidity extraction by the deployer team.
Adams, who heavily promoted the token on X as a tool to fight antisemitism, watched the market cap briefly touch $580 million before on-chain alarms triggered a sell-off. The token currently trades around $0.13, down over 75% from its intraday high of $0.58.
The Receipt: Wallet 9Ty4M
The collapse wasn’t just market volatility; it was mechanical. Blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps flagged suspicious execution by a wallet linked directly to the token’s deployment.
According to the on-chain data:
- The Setup: Wallet
9Ty4Mcreated one-sided liquidity pools on the Meteora exchange. - The Extraction: As retail volume spiked the price, the wallet removed approximately $2.5 million in USDC liquidity at the peak.
- The Aftermath: The team later re-injected roughly $1.5 million after the price had already cratered 60%.
“The team extracted over $1M by cycling USDC in and out of the liquidity pools,” Bubblemaps reported, comparing the maneuver to previous politician-backed extraction schemes.
The “Rebalancing” Defense
The project’s official account attempted to quell the backlash, claiming the liquidity removal was a standard “TWAP rebalancing” strategy to stabilize the token. The market remained unconvinced. The math leaves approximately $1 million in value unaccounted for, effectively transferring wealth from late buyers to the deployer wallet in minutes.
Institutional Context: The Political Grift Meta
This incident marks a grim evolution in the “PolitiFi” sector. While tokens linked to Donald Trump ($TRUMP) largely rely on community-driven speculation, Adams’ $NYC represents a direct issuance model where the political figure is actively promoting the asset. The immediate liquidity pull, intentional or incompetent, destroys the credibility of the “fundraising” narrative.
For Adams, who once took his mayoral paycheck in Bitcoin and vowed to make NYC the “crypto capital of the world,” this launch serves as a reputational tombstone. Instead of institutional adoption, he has delivered a textbook case of on-chain value extraction.
