British internet personality KSI has commented on pumping and dumping cryptocurrency after returning to his crypto Twitter account for the first time in a year and a half.
He posted on KSICrypto on February 13th 2024, saying ‘does this still work?’, with his most recent post prior to that being made in November 2022.
Crypto investigator ZachXBT responded, criticising the influencer, before sharing examples of KSI promoting tokens before selling various amounts of them, as outlined in this report by crypto and online scam reporter Coffeezilla.
This action of promoting then selling is also known by the phrase, ‘pump and dump’, i.e. selling large amounts of a token in order to make money from it.
In March 2022, KSI said he was ‘hodl gang’, as in, ‘hold gang’, meaning he’s planning on holding tokens rather than selling them, but now he’s sold large amounts of them. Granted, there is a two-year gap here and KSI could have changed his mind in that time, and he still holds some $XCAD tokens. We’ll come onto his comments at the bottom of this article.
ZachXBT listed this above example of KSI selling $XCAD, a token from Xcad Network, whose UK co-founder Joel Morris made the news after selling his own tokens and Save the Kids crypto coins back in 2021.
At the time, Joel said he would step down from his role at the watch-to-earn influencer token economy platform Xcad Network, but today is still listed as a founder on the xcadnetwork.com website and, a few years after the publication of this article, tweeted:
There were other instances of KSI promoting crypto tokens ($SUPER and $ERN and $P*SSY) before selling large amounts of them, as shown by ZachXBT below:
The news comes as The Sidemen Story launches on Netflix. The Sidemen is a collective of influencers including KSI.
KSI responds to crypto pump and dump allegations
On the $XCAD token promotion two years ago and selling some of them now, KSI told Coffeezilla: “I’m still hodl gang lmao, I sold some profit (as well as my own money) to put into Luna, thinking I would profit more to buy back more $XCAD and took a major L.
“I still fully believe in $XCAD (the ability to earn from watching content). I never left crypto, I’ve just been watching it from the shadows. It’s kind of hard to leave when you invested years into it.”
On $SUPER and $ERN, KSI added: “I don’t really remember the details of every transaction I’ve made. These were coins I put my own money in, thinking they would do well. I would listen to what people would say on Twitter and just follow stuff.
“I invested in Doge etc and I didn’t have any malicious intent in trying to scam. I was new to crypto so I was excited. Putting money in random things trying to chase the pumps and ultimately lost heavily.
“I hope people didn’t take my advice/tweets as gold, because looking back at my track record, I was f****** dogs***. I would say I’m bullish on BTC going up and it would go down. I would say I’m bearish on coins and it would go up. I’m pretty sure there’s evidence of me selling the bottom of things.
“I wish I was an evil genius that would pump and dump at the right time etc, because then at least people would say I had some wit about me. Reality is, I was just s*** at crypto.”
KSI
“I put 2 million of my own money and lost it all in the end. I made 0 profit on crypto. I made good calls sometimes, and I made bad calls just like everyone else in this space. I didn’t claim to be a financial advisor. Just a person that was interested in the space and excited about different projects, but in the end I lost it all on Luna.”
Two years ago, KSI said he lost $2.8m on Luna and $8m on crypto overall.
When asked by Coffeezilla why KSI traded the opposite way of what he said on Twitter, KSI said: “Because I thought that I was getting trolled. Honestly, every time I tweeted something, the opposite would happen on the market. So I decided to tweet the opposite of what I was actually doing and still took an L.”
Xcad Network co-founder Oliver Bell defends KSI over crypto accusations
Oliver Bell said in a tweet: “Out of our whole cap table, KSI has been one of the most biggest value adders, making introductions, suggestions around the product. He did sell some XCAD which he rightfully can, he buys and sells XCAD often. In fact he has bought a lot more XCAD than sold.
“KSI did not ‘Pump & Dump’ XCAD. I see this going around from a few community members, XCAD is a real business with a real vision and product. The phrase pump and dump makes it sound like its a quick meme token.
“At the time of writing this XCAD is one of the most successful IDOs to date. The time of the tweet and time of selling was not the peak, in fact shortly after this event the demand for XCAD increased.
“XCAD is a very liquid asset for its market cap as I’m sure you can see on CMC/CG. KSI remains an active XCAD investor and believer in XCAD, he has other wallets and as far as investors go, he has been one of our solid ones.
“The Main XCAD product is due to launch within Q1. We have lots of news and teasers to share with you throughout the quarter.”
Related article: Back in 2020, UK League of Legends streamer Gross Gore pulled out of a fight with KSI.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
