Scam Tokens Emerge After ‘Elona’ Musk’s Dispute With Chechen Leader
An online dispute between Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk and the infamous leader of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, has resulted in the creation of more than 30 token projects trying to capitalize on the intriguing case, with many of them appearing to be outright scams.
The tokens appeared after Musk, who is known as an active and outspoken Twitter user, challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin to “single combat” over Ukraine.
And while Putin never responded to the challenge, Kadyrov, a former warlord and Putin-ally who serves as the Head of State of the Russian republic of Chechnya, did reply.
Writing in a post on Telegram which was later shared by Musk, Kadyrov told the Tesla founder that he and Putin are in “completely different leagues,” and said it would “look unsportsmanlike when [Putin] beats the hell out of you.”
In his post, Kadyrov further referred to the Tesla CEO as “Elona,” and suggested that only proper training in Chechnya could turn him back into “Elon.”
“Thank you for the offer, but such excellent training would give me too much of an advantage. If he is afraid to fight, I will agree to use only my left hand and I am not even left-handed,” ‘Elona’ Musk replied.
As has happened many times before in the world of crypto, it did not take long before ‘Elona’-themed token projects started to emerge.
According to the blockchain security company PeckShield, 32 ‘Elona’-related token projects have been created so far, with at least 15 of them appearing to be so-called “honeypot” scams.
“Do NOT fall prey to it,” PeckShield wrote in a Twitter post on Thursday.
#PeckShieldAlert #Elona #Honeypot PeckShield has detected ~32 $Elona were created between March 15 and 16 on #Ethereum.
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) March 17, 2022
15 out of 32 of these $Elona appear to be #honeypot. @elonmusk Do *NOT* fall prey to it.#ELONASHIBA #ELONAKONG #PRETTYELONA #SEXYELONA #ELONADOG #ELONvPUTIN pic.twitter.com/qphSrkgeRx
Among the projects launched so far, coins such as ElonaShiba, ElonaGoose, and PrettyElona were all marked as honeypot scams by PeckShield.
A honeypot crypto scam is a smart contract written with the intention to drain ether (ETH) tokens from the contract if a user sends an amount of ETH to it. As a result, only the creator of the smart contract will be able to recover the funds.
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– Ukraine War and the Financial Markets: the Winners and Losers So Far