Lionel Messi’s Post Causes WATER Token to Jump 350%

Football legend Lionel Messi shared a photo of himself with the token’s mascot on his shoulder, along with a link to the project’s Instagram page, on his Instagram story on Monday. WATER, a Solana-based meme coin, jumped from $0.00032 to $0.00146, up 356% in the two hours following the post.

According to CoinMarketCap data, the token, which was later pulled back, is trading just above $0.001, up 215.6% in the last 24 hours. The token’s market value is around $94 million and its 24-hour trading volume is just under $40 million.

The project’s website says that WATER “aims to create a positive impact on the real world through the help of charities,” though it doesn’t detail how this is done. Several exchanges where the token can be purchased include Bitget, which Messi has partnered with since October 2022.

Messi’s media relations team has yet to make any statement on the matter.

Many celebrities, including US media star Caitlyn Jenner and rapper Iggy Azalea, made money from meme coins earlier this year and even began selling tokens on the Solana blockchain. However, all of these have drawn backlash as people are trying to quickly cash in on their followers.

For this reason, Messi’s post was met with skepticism by some in the crypto community. Analyst @ericonomics wrote on Twitter: “Rug pull is probably coming soon, so do yourself a favor and definitely don’t buy.”

“This is the third token scam promoted by Messi,” he wrote. “The first was a project called Leafty, which lost all liquidity in about 5 days. The second was a similar rug pull project called Planet.”