Blockchain sleuth Zachary Wolk — known online as ZachXBT — has slammed crypto influencer Zion “Ansem” Thomas, accusing him of facilitating a string of memecoin “pump and dumps.”

In a heated exchange Oct. 5 exchange on X, Wolk and Thomas went back and forth over what Wolk alleged was Thomas’ role in shilling a swathe of “low cap” Solana ( SOL ) memecoins. 

Wolk first mentioned Thomas while discussing memecoin bull Murad Mahmudov’s “Memecoin Supercycle” speech at Token 2049 last month, accusing him of promoting coins to his followers in place of having a legitimate “edge” on the market. 

Mahmudov was the CIO of Adaptive Capital, a crypto hedge fund that collapsed in March 2020 amid a wider market downturn. He has since generated a large following on X by advocating for the role of memecoins in crypto and posting lists of his top memecoin picks. 

“If you resort to promoting new low cap memecoins every few days to followers as a large account it’s [because] you have no edge and have to use your followers instead,” said Wolk, claiming that Thomas was also complicit in this behavior. 

ZachXBT accuses crypto influencer Ansem of promoting memecoin ‘pump and dumps’ image 0

Source: ZachXBT

Thomas asked Wolk why “talking about lowcaps” — referring to memecoins with a small market capitalization — was considered to be “grifting.”

Wolk claimed that Thomas — who has more than 507,000 X followers — has an outsized capacity to influence tokens with smaller valuations, something he said could lead many of his followers to lose money by chasing memecoin pumps. 

Thomas retorted by claiming that his calling out Dogwifhat (WIF) to his followers at a $100,000 market cap — which later ran to a peak value of $4.8 billion in March — was much “better” than promoting a utility-based token such as Chainlink (LINK) which is down 90% against Bitcoin ( BTC ) year-to-date. 

Wolk lashed back, accusing Thomas of shilling “hundreds” of low-cap coins, including BODEN, HOBBES, ZEUS, and WYNN, as well as several celebrity memecoins including those from pop stars Jason Derulo and Davido.

ZachXBT accuses crypto influencer Ansem of promoting memecoin ‘pump and dumps’ image 1

Source: ZachXBT

“The ‘low cap garbage’ you talk about has dominated 90% of retail mindshare in crypto over the past year,” Thomas retorted. “Whether you like it or not that’s what [people] want to trade.”

BODEN, a President Joe Biden-themed memecoin, is down nearly 99% from its April all-time high, while the likes of HOBBES, ZEUS, and WYNN are also all down roughly 98% from their respective all-time highs. 

ZachXBT accuses crypto influencer Ansem of promoting memecoin ‘pump and dumps’ image 2

BODEN is down 98.9% from its all-time high market cap of $1.04 billion in April. Source: CoinGecko

Related: 'Every meme coin is a rug pull in the works' — Mark Cuban

Memecoins have rapidly become one of the most hotly debated topics in crypto over the last year. 

Memecoin advocates say the structurally worthless tokens, which include the likes of Dogecoin (DOGE), Pepe (PEPE), and WIF are a better class of investments than utility tokens due to their relatively outsized returns so far this cycle. 

Critics say that memecoins are fundamentally “extractive,” allowing insiders and early investors to make huge sums of money off less sophisticated retail participants and then disappear with the profits. 

Magazine: Memecoins: Betrayal of crypto’s ideals… or its true purpose?