After on-chain crypto researcher ZachXBT alleged that influencer Lark Davis engaged in shilling tokens, the latter has denied the claims in a Twitter statement.
Davis argued that the allegations revolve around token sales and he simply sold the tokens at their launch as part of a ‘common investing practice’. He further said, “I am not a ‘whale’ in these projects. The amounts I sold are nowhere near enough to dump the price.”
In response, ZachXBT underlined that dumping a six-figure amount is enough for a micro-cap project to react aggressively.
ZachXBT notes 8 incidents of shilling
In his Sept. 29 post, ZachXBT claimed that Davis pocketed over $1.2 million through eight different token launches. However, Davis hit back saying, “There is also nothing wrong with selling and making money. As I frequently say, take profits. When a coin is up big time cash out.”
ZachXBT revealed that he found the wallet addresses of the influencer through his donation link and NFT posts, adding that he promoted low-cap projects only to profit from the dump. Noting the first case from February 2021, ZachXBT remarked that Davis promoted Umbrella Network $UMB at its launch and dumped all of the 62.5k UMB received for over $136,000 in the next few hours.
Meanwhile, Davis has refuted the claims by saying he maintained transparency in his dealing. He said, “To be clear, I always disclose on YT when I am invested in a token sale. I also shared these opportunities with my followers and subscribers well before the launch. (I shared them in the pre-launch stage, the same time I purchased the tokens)”
Davis also maintained that he paid for the coins he sold and “got nothing for free”. Concerning UMB, the influencer defended himself by saying, “UMB — I tweeted that the price exploded on listing. Which was true. I did not say to run out and buy the listing pump. I was in pre-launch, there is nothing wrong with selling (that’s the point in getting in pre-launch).”
However, ZachXBT argued that Davis doesn’t provide evidence of buying these tokens in the post, adding, “He says he purchased them the same way you would too when he got huge allocations and all of these projects had scammy vesting and were acquired at a price way lower than public allocations.”
Davis hits back calling allegations ‘ridiculous’
Lark allegedly repeated this trading strategy for Shadows $DOWS on March 1, which ZachXBT claims made him $56,000. With SHOPX, the analyst accuses Lark of dumping all his 120,000 SHOPX for around $435,000. With that, similar claims are made for $BLES, $PMON, $BMI, $XED, and $APY.
Apart from weak tokenomics, ZachXBT alleges that these promoted projects didn’t have any VC backing. Especially when it is being reported that a weak market didn’t deter institutions and venture firms from pouring money into the sector.
He calls out the influencer saying, “Participating in seed rounds & sharing projects you genuinely like is completely fine as long as it’s done in a transparent manner. This is not the case as Lark has a pattern of dumping his discounted launchpad bags right after shills across YT, Twitter, & newsletter.”
He also questions Davis’ motivation behind shilling launchpad projects to his influencers if his claims of not getting paid for them are to be believed.
FatMan chimes in
Davis sticks to his innocence citing a weak crypto market where prices are on a downward spiral. He said, “I presented token sale opportunities to you before the sales. In every single one of these examples, those who paid attention and got into the token sales made money. Because you, like me, I expect sold or would have sold in the same situation.”
At the time of writing, the global cryptocurrency market cap has spiraled under $1 trillion with Bitcoin itself sitting at around $19,575 on CoinGecko. This means over $2 trillion has been washed out from the market since its 2021 peak.
However, notably, ZachXBT’s statement that “It’s hilarious he blames the bear market for my post when these projects went to zero months before the bear market began,” could hold water. Even Crypto influencer FatMan has called it “categorical evidence” against Davis, stating, “This needs to be illegal. Absolutely disgusting.”
Nevertheless, further calling the allegations ‘ridiculous,’ Davis has assured that he will continue to put out his opinions on crypto projects.
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