Former New York City Mayor Celebrity Coin Crash: Market Cap Plunged 90% Hours After Release, Project Team Cashes Out Over One Million

Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams launched the NYC Token meme coin on his first day out of office, becoming today’s biggest “black swan” event in the crypto circle. The press conference, from a highlight moment in Times Square, quickly evolved into an on-chain data alarm—market cap plummeted from $600-700 million to below $95 million, investors lost nearly $500 million, and the project team cashed out over $1 million through liquidity manipulation. This was not just a simple Rug Pull but exposed systemic risks associated with celebrity coins.

Market Cap Rollercoaster: From Dream to Reality in Hours

According to multiple on-chain data sources, the price trajectory of NYC Token is a textbook example of bubble burst.

Based on on-chain data, investor paper losses since launch have approached $500 million. The speed is so fast that it makes any meme coin pale in comparison.

On-Chain Manipulation Techniques Exposed: The Project’s Cash-Out Roadmap

What’s most worrying isn’t just the market cap collapse itself but the on-chain manipulation traces behind it. According to Bubblemaps monitoring, a wallet associated with NYC Token deployer 9Ty4M executed a carefully designed liquidity manipulation strategy.

One-sided liquidity arbitrage game

The project team’s operation process is as follows:

• Create a one-sided liquidity pool on Meteora platform
• At the token’s high point (when market cap is near peak), extract about $2.5 million USDC
• After the token’s value drops 60%, re-inject only about $1.5 million USDC
• Through this round-trip manipulation, net profit exceeds $1 million

This method has been pointed out by on-chain analysts as highly similar to the liquidity manipulation of previous LIBRA tokens, belonging to a typical “fake liquidity” scheme.

Real Liquidity Crisis

Besides the deployer’s active manipulation, quick reports indicate Rune Crypto warned that at least $3.4 million in liquidity may have been withdrawn. This means ordinary investors face not only a price crash but also potential liquidity exhaustion—making it impossible to sell even if they want to.

Adams’ Crypto Dream vs. Reality

Eric Adams was once one of the most enthusiastic advocates of crypto in traditional politics. During his tenure as NYC Mayor, he:

• Promoted the establishment of the New York City Digital Assets Office
• Hosted the first NYC Crypto Summit
• Paid the first three mayoral salaries in Bitcoin and Ethereum
• Pushed projects like “NYC Coin” and “BitBond” (Bitcoin Bonds)

This NYC Token was originally another attempt at his crypto ideals. He stated at the launch that proceeds would fund public welfare projects against anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, with a total supply of 1 billion tokens, of which 70% are labeled as “New York City Reserve,” not immediately entering circulation.

But reality dealt him a heavy blow. The new NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani has explicitly stated he will not buy the token, and the market has voted with its feet, dismissing the project.

Systemic Risks of Celebrity Coins

The NYC Token fiasco reflects a deeper issue: celebrity coins are never short of hype, but lack transparency and security.

Why celebrity coins are so prone to collapse

• Information asymmetry: Adams’ launch did not disclose key details such as partners, specific issuance mechanisms, or fund usage
• Centralization risk: The project is highly centralized; deployers can easily control liquidity
• Regulatory vacuum: Although deployed on mainstream chains like Solana, effective regulation is lacking
• FOMO sentiment: Celebrity effect attracts irrational investors, creating perfect windows for cashing out

Pervasiveness of on-chain manipulation

The liquidity cycling manipulation used in NYC Token has already become a “standard operation” in the meme coin world. Project teams typically:

• Create a one-sided liquidity pool
• Extract funds at high points
• Re-inject at low points
• Cycle for profit

This method is almost impossible for ordinary investors to detect without professional on-chain analysis tools.

What Investors Can Learn

This incident offers lessons beyond simply “don’t buy celebrity coins.”

• Beware of missing information: Any project that cannot clearly explain partners, fund use, or governance mechanisms should be suspect
• Monitor on-chain data: Learn to use tools like Bubblemaps, Etherscan to observe liquidity changes, large transfers, and abnormal signals
• Understand centralization risks: The more centralized a project, the higher the risk, as the core team can decide the project’s fate at any time
• FOMO is your biggest enemy: Rapid market cap growth often indicates risks are accumulating quickly, not opportunities

Summary

NYC Token’s transformation from dream to reality took less than 24 hours. This meme coin project, launched by a former NYC mayor and once reaching a $700 million market cap, ultimately became a vivid lesson on on-chain risks, celebrity coin traps, and liquidity manipulation.

Adams’ enthusiasm for crypto cannot compensate for the project’s transparency issues, nor can market hype for celebrity effect change the reality of on-chain manipulation. For crypto investors, this is not only a warning of financial loss but also a practical lesson on how to identify risks and interpret on-chain data. The risks of celebrity coins are never in their fame itself but in the true intentions hidden behind the data.