Stephen Colbert, the charismatic host of The Late Show CBS once again associates many cryptocurrencies with scams, but does so by parodying the vernacular of an experienced HODLer.
In a segment Wednesday about Gen Z members falling for scams in and out of the crypto space, Colbert referenced the rug pull behind a token inspired by the Netflix show Squid Game, in which thousands of investors lost more than $ 3 million. Together with “certified young person” and staff writer Eliana Kwartler, Colbert presented an “incredible investment opportunity” designed to get people’s credit card numbers, pet first names, and street names on the one they grew up with.
“If Gen Z wants to stay safe online, they should invest in this amazing new cryptocurrency token, it’s called Colbert Coin,” Kwartler said. “With Colbert Coin, you give us your savings and then we exchange them for cryptocurrencies. After that, you will never have to worry about it again, my friends. “
Colbert added:
“We are busy turning your cash into future money, to the moon, apes!”
The presenter of Late Show and Colbert Report was one of the few late-night talk show personalities to talk about cryptocurrencies as early as 2013, when the price of Bitcoin (BTC) was fluctuating between $ 50 and $ 300. At the time, Colbert described the cryptoasset as something that has value “only because a group of people on the internet have agreed that it is worth something.”
Comedian Jon Stewart, with whom Colbert worked as a correspondent on The Daily Show, joked about a similar token project using his name in December:
And if you like the “website” you’ll love my next project. Crypto “Stewcoin”!
– Jon Stewart (@jonstewart) December 16, 2021
And if you like the “website”, you will love my next project. The cryptocurrency “Stewcoin”!
In the cases of Colbert and Stewart, their bogus projects parody a very real problem in the crypto space: celebrities endorsing tokens that may or may not turn out to be fraudulent. Kim Kardashian promoted EthereumMax (EMAX) in an Instagram story in June 2021, a token that gained 116,000% in a week before falling more than 99% and leaving many investors in the red.
According to a report Thursday from Chainalysis, scammers received $ 7.8 billion in cryptocurrency stolen from victims during 2021, of which more than $ 2.8 billion came from carpet pulls. While the report noted that 90% of the total value lost by rug pulls in 2021 was the result of trade stoppages and withdrawals on major Turkish crypto exchange Thodex, all the others involved DeFi projects. Chainalysis attributed the prevalence of rug pulls to “advertising hype in space,” in addition to the lack of code audits for certain DeFi projects.
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