CardanoNews.xyz: Promoting A Memecoin They’re Invested In
Cardano News (.xyz) has been a media site created by (@heystuclark) covering Cardano news for quite some time, offering a free newsletter providing “up-to-date news and information on the Cardano ecosystem,” “tips and info on safe practices,” as well as “great tips on top potential coins/tokens.”
The media organization promised on its website to cover everything from “new tokens, NFTs, and partnerships” offering its community the ability to “stay up to date with recent Cardano updates without having to check Twitter every 5 minutes.”
Since August of last year, he has written a number of articles over the past twelve months; but as of late, they have been relatively absent, only posting twice in the last four months. Worst of all, they only covered memecoins; specifically, one they had been compensated by called $RICK making outlandish predictions and attempting to create unfounded hype.
Cardano News Decides To Promote $RICK
After four months of silence from Cardano News, the team noted in their latest article that it had “been a while since [their] last email,” but announced they had some truly “interesting news” to share that they just had to come out of hibernation to share with their followers
Was it to share about how Cardano’s TVL has sky-rocketed to meteoric highs even in the depths of this bear market? No. Was it to discuss the recent controversies in the Cardano ecosystem? Again, no.
What was the “interesting news” they had to share you ask? Well, it wasn’t really news at all; it was just a blatant promotion of a sh#tcoin on Cardano called $RICK and the financial advice that simply stated: “get some Rick in your life.”
Utilizing the usual eye-catching headline that aims to manipulate the greed within us all, Cardano News goes further by stating $RICK “is a new memecoin on Cardano already doing well compared to the rest of the Cardano token community.” Their team of writers then immediately showcased the $RICK chart a few weeks after the launch, further attempting to persuade the audience that $RICK is a great purchase capable of returning an amazing profit.
Cardano News began the article by directing its followers to purchase $RICK on Minswap and boasted $RICK’s alleged success, stating that its market cap had grown over 1,000% since its initial release (a very misleading statistic on its face), achieving a total market cap of 176,500 ADA. After showcasing these deceptive statistics, Cardano News had the audacity to state that there still “is a lot of potential and room for growth.”
They also utilized the remainder of the article to compare it to the largest memecoin in Cardano that essentially created the meme frenzy in the ecosystem; SNEK. Stu calculated that if $RICK could miraculously achieve a market cap worth half of SNEK’s ATH, $RICK would return a 168,000% return for all of its early holders. Stu did not explain how $RICK could achieve such a market cap, or how it could possibly obtain anywhere near the holder count of $SNEK; but stated if his followers had any questions or wanted to learn more, they should reach out to him directly or join the $RICK discord server.
Although Cardano news concluded by warning his followers that this blatant financial advice is not actually financial advice, advising them to be careful “with what [they] invest” in. Cardano News also issued a disclaimer telling his followers that this was not a paid advertisement, and Stu had not received any money as a result of sharing this token with his followers.
However, this is blatantly false. Stu is an early investor of $RICK who has clear incentives to onboard holders to this memecoin, which currently has a laughable 60 holders and just 13,520 $ADA in liquidity. There have only been 623 transactions since its launch, and with every purchase; the price spikes significantly. Stu admitted to buying in at pre-sale and has also bought additional $RICK on the open market since its launch.
Stu has also been promoting it off of his personal Twitter account, and retweeing official $RICK announcements off of the Cardano News Twitter page as well. See below just a few examples:
Stu has also been a vocal $RICK holder in Discord, failing to disclose his association with Cardano News until TCT questioned the team’s association with the media site, yet making the same calculations written in the article to further manipulate potential buyers. See below when he was questioned by TCT’s founder:
Stu has commented a total of 59 times in the $RICK Discord, constantly providing suggestions; fighting the “FUD” and large sales, and remaining overly optimistic on $RICK’s potential returns to everybody who got in early. See below a few of his messages in the Discord below:
With The Cardano Times’ founder Max going undercover impersonating a potential newcomer to $RICK looking to purchase it, Max (@mxm_us) asked Stu if it would be a good time to buy it even after its 1000% spike over the past few weeks. Max claimed he saw the article from Cardano News, and was getting massive FOMO on $RICK, and wanted his trusted media platform’s founder’s advice on whether or not it would be a good time to buy. See their entire conversation below:
Conclusion
Media sites in the crypto space have far too often fallen down the path of manipulating their thousands of followers simply for the sake of achieving a laughable return. Stu utilized Cardano News to pump a token he was early in, luring in followers who relied on his platform for education and news updates to purchase essentially a sh#tcoin.
This is an epidemic in our industry, plaguing virtually every media platform in one way or another. Big or small, they all possess the ability to manipulate their followers if they wish to act immorally.
Stu abandoned Cardano News for months and realized he could use this irrelevant platform he created to extract money from his followers by pumping a worthless token. It is a shame that in just 12 months since its inception, Stu decided to tarnish Cardano News’ reputation for eternity.
Let this be a lesson for all content creators, self-described “influencers,” and media platforms who operate in the same manner; The Cardano Times is watching, and we will expose each and every one of you. Your time may not be today or tomorrow, but it will come nonetheless.
