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On Monday, professional football player Lionel Messi promoted a Solana-based memecoin to his 504 million Instagram followers. The Argentine player shared a link to Watercoin (WATER), propelling the token by 350%. The crypto community has expressed concern about Messi’s endorsement of the project.
Global Football Stars Promote WATER
Lionel Messi, one of the best players in football history, promoted a Solana project named Watercoin. The football player’s Instagram account shared an image of Messi with the project’s logo and a link to its Instagram page.
Following the post, the memecoin surged over 350%, going from $0.00032 to $0.0015 in a few hours. WATER’s market capitalization rose by 325%, surpassing the $100 million mark.
Quickly, users expressed their concerns and doubts about the posts. Many speculated that Messi was a new victim of hackers who have restlessly targeted public figures’ social media accounts in this cycle.
Nonetheless, Messi’s Instagram story has not been deleted as of this writing, and no official report of a hack has been made public, suggesting that the post was authorized. Additionally, several uses pointed out the football player’s previous endorsement of crypto projects.
In February, the Inter Miami player announced his partnership with the Real-World Assets (RWA) tokenization platform. At the time, the platform’s token PLANET saw high volatility after soaring by 1,500%.
Moreover, the legitimacy of Messi’s promotion seems to be confirmed on Tuesday morning. Earlier today, retired Brazilian sensation Ronaldinho promoted WATER on his Instagram account. The post has the same format as his former teammate’s story, with a picture of the football player and WATER’s logo.
Is WATER Another Solana-Based Scam?
Regardless of the posts’ legitimacy, the crypto community remains concerned about the project. Many users pointed out that the team behind Watercoin is the same team responsible for another Solana-based memecoin, Beercoin (BEER).
As reported by NewsBTC, BEER crashed down last month after whales started selling large sums of the token. Seemingly, team-related wallets started cashing out, which plummeted the price and fueled deep concerns about the project. Since then, BEER has seen a 95% price decline.
Like Beercoin, WATER is surrounded by insider trading concerns. Crypto analytics firm Bubblemaps urged users to remain vigilant of the Solana token. Per the post, insiders control 30% of WATER’s total supply.
It is worth noting that WATER raised over $40 million in presale and reached a $1 billion market cap after launching last month. However, the token seemingly experienced “significant insider activity,” which plummeted the token’s valuation by 97%.
Despite this, some market watchers believe WATER is “starting to look solid” based on its current trading activity. VikingXBT suggested that the token could double its price if it successfully flips the $0.0011 resistance level.
At the time of writing, WATER trades at $0.00095, a 198% increase in the last 24 hours.
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