Killer Whales, the new show created by Hello Labs and CoinMarketCap, has been described as “Web3’s answer to Shark Tank.” On the show, a team of several crypto professionals (who have been described as “the Web3 industry’s most trusted VCs, popular influencers, and famous founders”) vote on various projects, giving them ‘SWIM’ to decide. Or gets a ‘sink’ vote. Which project will win?
CoinMarketCap, one of the show’s co-producers, is owned by Binance, a company that has been accused of wrongdoing by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Not only that, but many killer whale judges also have controversial crypto-related histories.
mario nawafal
Mario Nawfal hosts a variety of Twitter spaces (it’s apparently still The feature’s name, despite the platform’s rebrand to X), often creates content around current crypto controversies. Nawafal has reportedly used unauthenticated affiliations to help develop those locations.
He has also apparently confessed to charging thousands of dollars for the opportunity to introduce products at his Roundtable venues.
Nawafal also founded and leads a startup incubator called International Blockchain Consulting.
Despite promising to do so at no cost, the firm reportedly marked up the services for incubated companies massively. International Blockchain Consulting was also paid for services by other fledgling companies, including NFT Tech, to promote its own Twitter space.
Read more: FBI and SEC possibly investigating Mario Navafal after wave of complaints
When Upper Echelon made its video, Nawafal’s investment portfolio also appeared in dark red, raising concerns about his qualifications as an investor for a show that is primarily about investing.
anthony scaramucci
Anthony Scaramucci was notoriously one of the shortest-tenured Trump White House staffers, serving for just over a week as communications director in 2017. More relevant to his cryptocurrency is his deep relationship with Sam Bankman-Fried, a relationship in which he “opened up” his Rolodex to help Bankman-Fried get established.
FTX Ventures purchased a third of his firm SkyBridge Capital a few months before the collapse. As part of this deal, SkyBridge Capital took a long position in FTX Token (FTT). Scaramucci also claimed that he had received a call from Joseph Bankman a few days before the bankruptcy. The call took place before Scaramucci and his firm and an FTX firm flew to the Bahamas to enter into a series of agreements described in the FTX bankruptcy, known as “Letter Agreement – Release and Termination of Certain Relationships dated 11/11/2018.” 9/2022″.
Outside of these settlements, Scaramucci has claimed that his investment in Bitcoin more than offset his losses on FTT and that the quarter following the bankruptcy was one of his company’s best quarters ever. It has also halted withdrawals from its funds, citing “extreme digital asset market conditions following the FTX bankruptcy.”
Hopefully, he still has enough money to be considered a ‘killer whale’.
CryptoVendio
CryptoVendio is a popular YouTuber covering cryptocurrencies. He has been accused of promoting a number of different coins, which turned out to be scams, rigged or otherwise illegitimate.
Read More: Leaked Document Reportedly Shows How Much Influencers Charge to Promote Crypto on Twitter
nft god
Alex Finn, known as ‘NFT God’, is an NFT collector and newsletter writer. He had the unfortunate experience of having his wallet drained and his account hijacked to send phishing scams to his followers earlier this year.
Last night my entire digital livelihood was violated.
Every account related to me personally and professionally was hacked and used to hurt others.
More importantly, I lost a life-changing amount of my net worth
– NFT God (@NFT_GOD) 15 January 2023
Also, unfortunately for him, the Mutant app he was able to get back currently has a high offer of 4.8 WETH, which is significantly less than the 15.47 Ether required to buy back the app after it was hacked.
ran neuner
Ran Neuner is a crypto YouTuber and influencer who has also run investment firms and media companies in the digital asset sector.
He occasionally tweets his recommendations about specific cryptocurrencies, even cheekily including the text “This is” financial advice,
It appears that his team at least sometimes follows these recommendations by immediately selling their positions.
Gracie Chen
Gracie Chen is the managing director of Bitgate, a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange.
Chen recently wrote an article for Cointelegraph in which he argued that “in cases where misconduct has occurred and users have suffered financial losses, clear mechanisms are needed to begin recovering assets from at-fault parties. ”
In 2021, Bitget was suspended in Singapore for listing a token pretending to be associated with the popular Korean band BTS.
altcoin daily
Altcoin Daily is a YouTube channel that covers cryptocurrencies. ZachXBT, an independent researcher, has shared a document that shows Altcoin Daily charges $65,000 for promotion on its YouTube channel.
zach did Comment The source further explained that, as far as he knows, Altcoin Daily has always disclosed when it has been paid to promote cryptocurrencies.
Kevin Soni
Kevin Soni is a comedian who often discusses cryptocurrency topics in his videos on Instagram.
He faced some difficulties in his investment journey, there came a time when he quit his job she herself “Dead on the inside” after losing so much of his wealth in Safemoon.
Killer Whales, home of Web3’s most trusted grifters
Binance-owned CoinMarketCap is one of the most important websites in the cryptocurrency industry, receiving a self-reported 340 million visits per month. This means that the project is connected to the world’s most popular exchange and most used aggregator and still has a panel of judges that include:
- There is no evidence of investment success on a Twitter Spaces host that has been accused of undisclosed fraud,
- A failed White House aide who was involved in deeply suspicious transactions with FTX,
- A YouTuber who promotes coins that have a bad habit of failing,
- An NFT expert who lost his main NFT in a hack,
- An influencer who provides ‘financial advice’ while his team sells tokens,
- The managing director of an exchange who gets into trouble because of how poor his listed assets are,
- A comedian who almost lost everything on a thing called SafeMoon, and
- YouTubers who sell promos for tokens.
‘Killer Whales’ indeed.
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Source: protos.com
