Solana Meme Coin Sharpie 96% Sews in Seconds in Epic Rug Pull

Promoted by crypto influencers, Solana's meme coin reached a market cap of $54 million within an hour—but the price soon plummeted in a matter of seconds, with wallets littered with $3 million worth of tokens sold at once.

Sharpe (SHAR) launched on Wednesday and was introduced by the cartoon artwork of the Shar Pee dog. Combined with the push of crypto Twitter influencers—also known as “key opinion leaders” or KOLs—Meme Coin quickly reached a market cap of $54 million.

As this peaked, the project's pitch deck poured in, with the project's creators having tapped “50+ Tier 1 KOLs” and plans to partner with exchanges and other projects. Some of the influencers included in the document had no involvement with the project.

The leaked deck claims that a strategic partnership with leading meme coin BONK will come after SHAR touched a market cap of $100 million, which was denied by Bonk's core contributions Cadence and Nome. Meanwhile, the pseudonymous Joji, who has more than 200,000 followers, has also been implicated—the influencer denied it, sharing screenshots of Telegram messages and denying affiliation.

But it wasn't all a lie. Another influencer who goes by Yellowtree with 180,000 followers was spotted in the ship and posted about the project. Yellowtree told Decrypt that it was paid for the ad three months ago, although this was not disclosed on their Twitter account. Yello said other big KOLs were involved in the project, many of whom deleted their posts.

With all this in view, SHAR has returned from $54 million to $35.5 million. This must have worried insiders, as the token plunged 96.3% to $1.3 million in market value in just two seconds following a massive syndicated sale.

“One of the craziest rugs I've ever seen,” one anonymous trader tweeted.

Blockchain data visualization company Bubblemaps has revealed that 60% of its total token supply has been purchased at launch and distributed to over 100 addresses. Each of these addresses sent the supply to a central wallet, which sold everything in one clip for $3.4 million. Decrypt confirmed that the firm describes this as carpet pulling.

In response, the official SHAR Twitter account stated that amid widespread fear, uncertainty and doubt (known as FUD), the project “no longer had the funds to continue operations.” While Sharpe's creators have not finalized deals with anyone, they say they will provide proof of communication with each named influencer. That still hasn't happened, a day later.

The SHAR team did not respond to Decrypt's request for comment on Twitter.

Influencers are often sent a percentage of the total token supply to promote the project on social media. For example, in leaked messages with Wizard Of SoHo, a KOL with over 115,000 followers, the influencer asked for a 0.75% token offer in exchange for promotion – the group refused.

For many projects, this is a fundamental part of marketing and promotion—it's not the same as celebrity brand endorsements. This is a micro-influencer at the bottom of Pump.fun degen gambling on Meme Coins where micro-influencers receive payments for small-cap tokens, all the way up to large multi-million dollar tokens.

“KOLs are an important part of crypto, and there's nothing wrong with projects that need marketing.” Nick Wyman, founder and CEO of Bubble Maps, told Decrypt. “The issue comes when KOLs do not disclose their involvement. [and] Don't disclose how much you bought or received.

Edited by Andrew Hayward.