Retired wrestling legend “Hulk Hogan” has denied being responsible for a series of now-deleted social media posts promoting the Solana memecoin HULKAMANIA (HULK), which experienced a rapid surge and crash within a two-hour period.
In a post on Instagram on June 5, Hogan, whose real name is Terry Gene Bollea, urged his followers to ignore any recent posts made in his name as they were not genuine and would be taken down promptly.
Although all of Hogan’s posts have since been removed, a quick search on Google shows that his account had shared multiple posts promoting the Solana-based token HULK.
One of the posts compared HULK to another memecoin called Mother Iggy (MOTHER), making bold claims about its superiority. Other posts included links to the token on DEX Screener.
Additional posts shared by journalist Matt Binder indicated a video of Hogan supposedly related to the token launch, but Binder clarified that it was actually footage from a karaoke night in December.
HULK saw its market capitalization reach $18.8 million on June 6 at 7:40 pm UTC, just over an hour and a half after its launch. However, it quickly dropped to $2 million 20 minutes later, where it has remained ever since, as indicated by DEX Screener.
According to data from crypto analytics firm Bubblemaps, five wallets acquired 15% of the HULK supply on the meme token launch platform pump.fun before Hogan’s account shared the token. These wallets reportedly made $200,000 in profits out of a total of $1.5 million in unrealized gains by around June 6, 8:00 pm UTC.
It is unclear whether Hogan’s account was compromised, and if so, the manner in which it occurred. Hogan’s team did not provide any comments on the issue.
The alleged hacking incident coincides with a trend of lesser-known celebrities launching their own crypto tokens. Reality TV personality Caitlyn Jenner and rappers Iggy Azalea and Rich the Kid recently introduced and endorsed Solana-based tokens, with varying degrees of success. While most of these tokens have plummeted in value by more than 60%, Azalea’s MOTHER token recently surged to an all-time high following her pledge to improve its performance.
In a leaked magazine article, the mastermind behind Caitlyn Jenner’s meme coin was revealed along with a list of celebrity prices for their involvement in the project.