A look at the characters behind the speculative shitcoin crypto scene, including promoters who can earn anywhere from $5K-$10K to hype a coin
The Bud Light Mango Mai Tais were beginning to take hold when Eric Hackney — 38, unemployed and ticked off by watching other people get rich … Tweets: @alykhansatchu , @alykhansatchu , @alykhansatchu , @alykhansatchu , @business , @alykhansatchu , @alykhansatchu , and @superdogeio Tweets: Aly-Khan Satchu / @alykhansatchu : The Bud Light Mango Mai Tais were beginning to take hold when Eric Hackney — 38, unemployed and ticked off by watching other people get rich — figured, What the hell? and laid $500 on some crazy-sounding thing called ASS Coin. @business https://www.bloomberg.com/... Aly-Khan Satchu / @alykhansatchu : At times this might seems like a good old-fashioned pump-and-dump in penny stocks. In the crypto trade, the maneuver is known as a “rug pull.” https://www.bloomberg.com/... 08-FEB-2021 :: The Markets Are Wilding https://www.rich.co.ke/... Aly-Khan Satchu / @alykhansatchu : “It's insane,” Hackney kept thinking, “but it's reality.” 'It's DeFi ... It's BSC .... It's SUPERDOGE.' @business https://www.bloomberg.com/... “pit pat piffy wing wong wang just like that and make a millino bucks sure no problem bro.” https://www.rich.co.ke/... Aly-Khan Satchu / @alykhansatchu : ASS Coin: Australian Safe Shepherd one of those obscure virtual currencies that have YOLO'd & FOMO'd their way from crypto in-jokes to soaring — and now sinking — monuments to these strange financial times. https://www.bloomberg.com/... The Markets Are Wilding https://www.rich.co.ke/... @business : Meet the thrill-seeking amateurs prowling for profits in the wildest corners of the crypto market — all in search of the next big coin Read The Big Take ⬇️ https://www.bloomberg.com/... Aly-Khan Satchu / @alykhansatchu : In the unregulated world of DeFi, money buys influencers, who drive news cycles, which help pique interest, which drives up prices and trading volume. https://www.bloomberg.com/... Markets Are Wilding https://www.rich.co.ke/... @elonmusk I am become meme, Destroyer of shorts Aly-Khan Satchu / @alykhansatchu : The Creator — someone like this guy sitting in Thailand who just minted another digital will-'o-the-wisp, SuperDoge. https://www.bloomberg.com/... “Wow! What a Ride!” https://www.rich.co.ke/... Superdoge / @superdogeio : #SUPERDOGE founder was interviewed by Bloomberg. Thanks for sharing our story! https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Four days after Elon Musk's Dogecoin price-moving posts made meme-coin volatility mainstream news, this Bloomberg feature zooms from celebrity tweets to the ground floor: the paid promoter circuit, where shills earn $5K-$10K per coin hyped, and the retail buyers — like unemployed bettor Eric Hackney's $500 stake in ASS Coin — on the other side of the trade. The relationships show the full lifecycle in miniature: SuperDoge minted, ASS Coin surging then collapsing in a classic pump-and-dump.
First-order effects
- Retail holders like Hackney absorb the losses directly when promoted tokens collapse after the pump, while the promoters bank their flat $5K-$10K fees regardless of the outcome.
- New token creators gain a ready-made distribution channel — mint a coin, pay the promoter network, capture the attention spike.
Second-order effects
- Exchanges and regulators inherit the fallout: the same attention-driven market dynamics that produced the Mango Markets manipulation later put Avraham Eisenberg in a US legal case, showing enforcement arriving after the damage.
- Legitimate crypto businesses — exchanges like Binance navigating its own regulatory crackdown under Changpeng Zhao — face guilt-by-association as the speculative fringe sets the sector's public image.
Third-order effects
- If the promoter-for-hire economy persists across cycles, each bull run — including the 2024 'Trump trade' rally that lifted Coinbase and Robinhood — recycles the same structure: new tokens, paid hype, retail exit liquidity, followed by lagging legal consequences for a handful of actors while the pattern itself continues.
The trend: Crypto speculation keeps re-running a pump-and-dump playbook where paid promoters and token creators capture value ahead of retail buyers, with enforcement trailing each cycle by years.