The truth behind the operation of the meme coin SHAR endorsed by 50 top KOLs, the collusion between KOLs and the conspiracy group has been exposed

Author: Grapefruit, ChainCatcher

Editor: Nianqing, ChainCatcher

"The market cap grew from zero to $6,000 in just one hour, but it took only one minute to drop from $400 billion to $3 million, ending its journey with FUD just seven hours after launch" can summarize the brief life of the new Meme project Sharpei on the Solana chain (token SHAR, abbreviated as "SHAR") from soaring to crashing.

As a new Meme project, the SHAR team leveraged endorsements such as "supported and backed by over 50 top crypto KOLs, the team has successfully operated Meme projects like MEW and MANEKI…" to gain widespread attention and market heat in a short time, but ultimately ended in a crash, revealing once again the opacity and manipulation in the Meme coin market and the collusion between KOLs and project teams.

The Rise and Fall of SHAR: From Zero to $6,000 in One Hour, Down to $3 Million in Just One Minute

At 10 PM on October 23, the SHAR token burst onto the scene, skyrocketing from an opening price of $0.00056 to $0.059, with a market cap rising from zero to $60 million within one hour, an increase of nearly a hundred times.

While the entire community was shocked by the surge and anticipated it to be the next Meme hit project with a market cap exceeding $100 million, on-chain detective ZachXBT published a post indicating that the new Meme project SHAR was involved with conspiracy groups and KOL manipulation, pointing out that the project team listed collaborations with 50 top KOLs in a leaked business plan (Pitch Deck), including the BONK project team and media outlets like Cointelegraph and The Block.

Soon, the projects, media, and KOLs listed began to clarify that they had not reached any cooperation with SHAR. Among them, BONK core co-builder Kadense responded immediately, stating that the SHAR team had never communicated, discussed, or reached any cooperation with BONK; WuBlockchain, TraderSZ, and others also commented below, stating they had not cooperated and requested the project team to remove them from the collaboration list.

These negative news caused SHAR's price to nearly halve in the early morning, but many community users believed that the negative news would not significantly impact the project and chose to increase their holdings. For instance, crypto KOL Yelo, who had participated in multiple meme projects, publicly expressed optimism about the project and marked his buying point, causing SHAR's market cap to rebound to around $40 million.

By 5 AM, an internal address dumped 500 million SHAR tokens worth $3.3 million in one go, reportedly accounting for 50% of the supply, causing SHAR's price to plummet over 90%, leading to a market cap drop back to $3 million.

In response, Bubblemaps analysis indicated that 60% of SHAR's supply was aggregated and dispersed across more than 100 addresses, with the SHAR project team manipulating market prices by transferring tokens between different addresses.

Subsequently, SHAR's official Twitter account stated that the project had been prepared for over three months before launch, and now due to FUD, the project team no longer had the funds to continue operations. They also emphasized that they could provide evidence of communication with the KOLs listed in the business plan and offered quotes and transactions.

After this FUD tweet, SHAR's official account posted again, stating that they would continue to develop the Sharpei project, and 10% of SHAR tokens had already been burned.

Currently, SHAR's market cap remains at $2.3 million, with addresses continuously buying in.

"With Endorsements from 50 Top KOLs, the Team Successfully Operated MEW and MANEKI, with Detailed Market Cap Growth Management and Listing Plans"

Compared to the FUD surrounding the SHAR project, community users are more interested in the contents revealed in SHAR's business plan (Pitch Deck), as it outlines a narrative expansion plan for a Meme coin, token distribution, market cap management, and expected listings. Similarly, the disclosed SHAR project business plan includes project narrative, token distribution, market cap management, and listing plans.

In terms of project narrative, Sharpei is centered around a dog travel food blogger, similar to "Midnight Diner," using food to connect with people from different cultures, becoming a gathering place for Web2 and Web3 communication. The total issuance of the SHAR token is 1 billion, with 90% of the liquidity to be sold at launch, and 10% to be airdropped to the community.

SHAR's plan states that over 50 top KOLs in the crypto industry have participated in the collaboration, listing KOL avatars such as 0xSUN and Yelo. Additionally, a dedicated group has been created for KOLs supporting the project's development, with over 40 whales and Degen users collaborating with them. This undoubtedly provides strong backing for SHAR's promotion and market heat.

The team consists of more than 20 members, with 10 in the marketing team, who have previously led Meme projects MEW and MANEKI.

SHAR's detailed market cap growth management from $50 million to $100 million includes market-making and listing plans. The document states that after the KOL presale, the market cap will reach around $5 million, and then within a few hours of launch, it is expected to reach between $30 million and $50 million, with listings on exchanges like MEXC and Gate.

In terms of market-making, they will collaborate with DWF on CEX and have received assistance from CLS on DEX.

Crypto KOL Jason remarked that the SHAR project team is a group with deep operational experience, very skilled in narrative, operations, marketing, and, more importantly, market cap management and listings.

The Deck mentions that the main team members come from the recently launched Meme coin MEW, which has a market cap of $900 million, as well as MANEKI (also a cat-themed Meme, but with a market cap of only $60 million, not ruling out that MEW and MANEKI are from the same group), so the SHAR team possesses mature Meme operational experience.

Moreover, the Deck also reveals that the SHAR team has support from many external communities and media, such as bark meta, and they enhance the project's influence and attractiveness through activities like AMAs.

In terms of market cap management and listings, the team also has mature experience, clearly planning in the Deck the specific paths to reach certain market caps and which exchanges to list on. More ingeniously, they have specified the involvement methods and timelines of partners (including media, communities, exchanges, etc.) for each step of this process, making the entire plan tightly interconnected and cleverly designed.

He concluded: Meme coins are not driven by the community as ordinary retail investors imagine; they are essentially still project teams or another form of VC coins. The "certain address bought xxx at launch, earning 9999 times wealth myth" we see in the media is often just a carefully orchestrated gimmick by the project team to support publicity.

Unveiling the Collusion Between KOLs and Project Teams

As an emerging Meme token, SHAR attracted widespread market attention right from its launch, thanks to the project's claim of having 50 top industry KOLs supporting it, which undoubtedly provided strong backing for SHAR's promotion and market heat. The crash of SHAR has once again sparked controversy over the collusion between crypto KOLs and conspiracy groups in market manipulation.

Some crypto community users believe that the crash of SHAR was not accidental, but rather the result of collusion between KOLs and conspiracy groups manipulating the market. KOLs leverage their influence and fan base to attract a large influx of investors into the market through promotion and publicity, thereby driving up SHAR's price. However, once the price peaks, these KOLs and conspiracy groups choose to quickly sell off their tokens, leading to a market crash, with investors suffering heavy losses.

Some KOLs admit to collaborating with SHAR and playing a role in promotion and publicity for the project, but this has also been criticized as using their influence and fan base to manipulate market prices. For instance, crypto KOL @0xSun acknowledged collaboration with SHAR, with the project team providing 1 million tokens; another KOL, @Yelo, publicly expressed optimism during SHAR's decline, stating that many big KOLs like @dohertyjackk, @Cented7, and @yoxics were optimistic.

It is worth mentioning that SHAR's market maker CLS is one of the members arrested and prosecuted in the FBI's phishing enforcement action in October, accused of collaborating with the project team to manipulate the prices and trading volumes of various crypto assets.