Crypto Influencer Nick O’Neill Says He ‘Rugged’ Unsolicited Token Sent to Him

Some community members had hoped the token could mirror ANSEM’s success despite lacking the influencer’s official backing.

Crypto influencer Nick O’Neill said he deliberately sold off a community-created token after its developers sent him 60% of its supply.

The incident has sparked criticism from some traders, while others argue the entrepreneur had no obligation to support an unofficial token created without his approval.

O’Neill Defends Selling Unsolicited Token

It all started when the Fibonacci account on X shared a clip from O’Neill’s Choose Rich Live YouTube show, in which he had noted that The Black Bull (ANSEM) had surged 40% to a peak market cap above $120 million after the influencer it was named after, Ansem, teased weekly airdrops.

In the clip, he also pointed out that Ansem controls 60% to 65% of the token supply and fees through a public wallet that was valued at about $50 million at the time.

“Will it surge to similar highs? I don’t know. It’s hard for these to sustain…If you take a look at the charts of Ansem, it’s setting up for a pretty bad head and shoulders pattern. And I think the reality is, it’s like there’s not enough buyers in the market,” remarked O’Neill on ANSEM’s performance.

But even after expressing those doubts, a now-deleted post suggested that O’Neill could also have benefited if he had controlled 65% of a token’s supply, and, responding to the idea before the post disappeared, the podcaster replied, “I mean that would have been incredible.”

However, he said the opposite shortly after, telling his nearly 286,000 followers on X that he had no intention of supporting tokens launched in his name apart from the original RICH meme coin.

“I will literally rug any token anybody creates for me other than the original $RICH. I just rugged another token,” the influencer wrote.

When criticism started, O’Neill clarified that someone had independently created and distributed the token in question, named I Choose Rich Everytime (NICK), before sending him a large allocation.

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Reserve, the account behind the coin, accused the influencer of selling the NICK tokens shortly after receiving them, something he did not deny, instead arguing that there was no reason for him to back another community-created asset when an existing cryptocurrency already carried his branding.

“If I wanted to do this I wouldn’t have some random person do it,” he responded.

ANSEM Comparison Hangs Over the Discussion

Some of O’Neill’s followers urged him to embrace the token anyway, suggesting it could rival ANSEM’s success. But others defended his decision, with one of them, ExcaliberArt, comparing the situation to receiving free shares in a company, which O’Neill was free to sell since he had never promised to promote or endorse the token.

As CryptoPotato reported yesterday, the deployer behind The Black Bull sent 650 million tokens, worth about $71 million at the time, directly to Ansem’s wallet for free while walking away with just $5,500 for themselves. According to on-chain analysts, the distribution suggested a pre-arranged promotional scheme, although some watchdogs, such as Rugcheck, warned that the token’s concentrated ownership had increased the risk of market manipulation.