On-chain sleuth ZachXBT calls crypto influencer Ansem a scammer

On-chain investigator ZachXBT has called out crypto influencer Ansem for scamming his followers by promoting low-cap memecoins.

The beef came into the spotlight over a speech by Murad Mahmudov, a well-known name in crypto circles, at the TOKEN2049 event in Singapore last month.

Murad discussed how memecoins were taking over the market, surpassing traditional cryptos. According to him, this cycle’s change in market sentiment shows that memecoins are part of a bigger cultural shift.

Memecoins taking over?

Andrew Kang, co-founder of Mechanism Capital, tweeted that Mahmudov’s insights may have triggered a new wave of capital moving into memecoins.

He added that Popcat seemed to benefit from this and was now in price discovery. He even claimed that it could join the ranks of BONK, WIF, PEPE, and FLOKI.

Husslin replied to Kang’s tweet, questioning whether the rise of memecoins was due to Murad’s influence or macroeconomic factors like China’s stimulus and the Fed’s rate cut.

That’s when Zach jumped into the conversation with his trademark sarcasm. He threw shade at Murad, saying:

“Yeah it’s definitely the guy who blew up his fund in March 2020 with his own token down 80% in the past year and pivoted to promoting pump and dumps.” 

Trader Dyme defended Murad, pointing out that while his fund did crash, some of the blame is actually with Arthur Hayes’ BitMEX, which apparently ignored his stop-loss orders.

Dyme added that memecoins appeal to retail investors because they offer outsized rewards for relatively small risks — that’s if you don’t end up holding the bag when the prices crash.

But Zach wasn’t buying it. He responded to Dyme, accusing big influencers of pumping new low-cap memecoins every few days because they have no real trading edge. 

“If you resort to promoting new low-cap meme coins every few days to followers as a large account, it’s because you have no edge and have to use your followers instead. Only thing which changed this cycle is grifting as large accounts became even more normalized than before. For example, Ansem.”

Ansem fires back

Ansem hit back at Zach almost immediately. He asked why talking about low-cap tokens was considered grifting in the first place.

To him, discussing low-cap projects isn’t any different from discussing larger ones. But Zach didn’t back down.

He pointed out that when someone with over 500,000 followers talks about low-cap tokens, it significantly moves the market.

Ansem tried to defend himself, saying that talking about memecoins isn’t that different from discussing other crypto projects like AltLayer or StarkWare, both of which are down by 85%.

Zach shot back, saying that promoting large-cap cryptocurrencies doesn’t have the same market-moving effect as promoting low-cap coins. In his words:

“When you post about a micro cap, it goes up 2X or more, then when you stop posting, those coins die out and have entire market cycles within a week. Then it’s just repeating the process with the next shill.”

Ansem wasn’t about to let Zach get the last word. He claimed that his involvement in WIF, a memecoin that skyrocketed from $100k to $5 billion, was a much better move than promoting larger projects like Chainlink, which has dropped 90% against Bitcoin. 

According to the influencer, memecoins are what people want to trade right now. He claims they dominate 90% of all retail interest.

But Zach quickly reminded him of the dozens of low-cap tokens Ansem had promoted that ended up crashing to zero. 

“It’s almost like if you shill so many coins during a bull run, then one of them will eventually hit.”

Ansem continued to defend himself, pointing out that some of the coins Zach mentioned, like Hobbes and Zeus, were made by random internet degenerates based on pictures he posted.

He also highlighted that Boden, one of his promoted coins, went from $1 million to nearly $1 billion, clearly trying to shift the narrative to the successes of his trades. Even more ridiculous, he asked Zach:

“What trades have you shared that have made people money?”

Zach quickly replied with:

“I do not pump and dump hundreds of low cap coins to my followers. I actually help people in the space by solving hacks, getting criminals arrested and recovering funds from victims. I also save people money by telling them to avoid blindly following KOL shills such as yourself.”

Ansem shot back one last time, accusing Zach of exaggerating the number of coins he’s promoted and repeating that while Zach helps people, he doesn’t share trades that make money.

He said, “We can go back and forth on memes all day, but you know for a fact I’ve helped people way more than hurt them on this site. Ending this here.”

Naturally, Zach did not respond.