Crypto Beast Market Manipulation Scandal: Five-Day Wealth Myth Turned into a Bubble in Four Hours

Recently, the cryptocurrency community was rocked by another scandal involving market manipulation, with the main character being the well-known KOL Crypto Beast, who has nearly 800,000 followers. This influential opinion leader promoted aggressively on social media while secretly manipulating the market, ultimately reaping significant profits at the expense of many retail investors.

On July 14, the token Altcoin (ALT), strongly recommended by Crypto Beast, plummeted from $0.19 to $0.003, with a market capitalization evaporating by nearly $190 million in just a few hours. Meanwhile, 45 on-chain wallets associated with him simultaneously sold off, cashing out over $11 million in total.

The Rise and Fall of ALT Tokens

Crypto Beast has been intensively promoting the ALT token on social media since July 9. He describes it as "the next hundredfold coin," claiming it has "billions of dollars in market cap potential." With the continuous hype and pump, the market's FOMO sentiment is gradually heating up.

On July 12, the pump action accelerated significantly. In just two days, ALT soared from $0.039 to $0.19, nearly quadrupling in value, attracting more retail investors to flock in.

However, the good times didn't last long. On July 14, the harvesting operation officially began. In just 4 hours, the price of ALT plummeted like a waterfall to $0.003, a drop of up to 94%, nearly reaching zero.

Manipulation Techniques Revealed

The well-known on-chain detective ZachXBT revealed the full picture of this manipulation through in-depth investigation. Starting from a wallet address previously disclosed by Crypto Beast, ZachXBT tracked down a key Celestia address.

The investigation shows that the address sent small amounts of funds to multiple instant exchange platforms between May and July 2025 to fund "side wallets." These side wallets formed a "bundled wallet cluster" that synchronized to sell ALT on July 14, cashing out a total of over $11 million.

In addition, an independent "Sniper Cluster" has sold over 2.6 million USD worth of ALT, which is associated with the token deployer. However, in terms of influence and funding scale, Crypto Beast seems to be the main player in this manipulation.

Currently, there are still multiple wallets associated with Crypto Beast holding over 89 million ALT, accounting for about 10% of the total supply. After the incident, Crypto Beast deleted the posts promoting ALT and deactivated their social media accounts.

ZachXBT pointed out that this is not the first time Crypto Beast has used this tactic. In several previous projects, including ALPHA, RICH, YE, RUG, ACE, JOHN, he has employed a similar "bundled pump and dump" model, resulting in significant losses for many early followers.

The Chaos of KOLs in the Cryptocurrency Circle

The actions of Crypto Beast are not an isolated case, but rather one of the common manipulation tactics in the cryptocurrency world. Leveraging a large fan base and influence, some KOLs can easily spark a wave of hype, which may secretly collude with project parties and early holders, ultimately harvesting retail investors.

In recent years, ZachXBT has exposed multiple similar cases:

1. The well-known crypto YouTube influencer BitBoy (Ben Armstrong) has long been receiving "soft advertising fees" to promote shitcoins and altcoins, and has promoted several token projects that eventually went bankrupt.

2. The internet celebrity boxer Logan Paul uses his associated wallet to buy low-priced tokens or NFTs in advance, then promotes them on social media before selling at a high price.

3. Lark Davis, who has 1.4 million followers, frequently recommends low market cap projects to his fans, and then quickly sells off, involving multiple tokens.

4. The famous French influencer Laurent Correia manipulated the NFT project "Billionaire Dogs Club", and the team ran away just one week after its launch.

The catastrophic crash of ALT to zero in just four hours is just one of the common "scenarios of harvesting leeks" in the cryptocurrency world. Although projects may collapse and personas may fall apart, these lessons are worth contemplating for all investors. In this field full of opportunities and risks, it is crucial to remain vigilant and think independently.