Author: Beosin
On January 13-14, former New York City Mayor Eric Adams faced significant scrutiny after the token he launched, NYC, experienced a sharp price drop shortly after its release. The Beosin security team conducted a detailed on-chain analysis of the incident and shares the findings below:
Event Overview
On January 13, Beijing time, former New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced the launch of the NYC token (token contract address: Ho5fkxk9uqUuVN5kt7TUFacduWCpKPAuYkM9HD3KAXA2) on social media. However, just 30 minutes after the token went live, the address that created the liquidity pool, 9Ty4M4t9MZArhJBKFWbYrzeqdMf2Ua5eHWSRW3LXKyGt, began removing liquidity:
https://solscan.io/account/9Ty4M4t9MZArhJBKFWbYrzeqdMf2Ua5eHWSRW3LXKyGt
This address removed approximately 2,377,376 USDC, causing the price of the NYC token to plummet by over 80%, and its market capitalization to shrink from a peak of $600 million to less than $100 million.
https://ave.ai/token/Ho5fkxk9uqUuVN5kt7TUFacduWCpKPAuYkM9HD3KAXA2-solana
On January 15, Adams continued to promote the NYC token by retweeting related posts and issued a statement through his representative, Todd Shapiro, claiming that he did not profit from the NYC token and did not withdraw any funds from it. However, the community remains skeptical.
On-Chain Data Analysis
Using BeosinTrace to analyze the Solana address 9Ty4M4t9MZArhJBKFWbYrzeqdMf2Ua5eHWSRW3LXKyGt, we obtained the following results regarding its on-chain activities.
1. On-Chain Activity Overview
The address 9Ty4M obtained 1,000,001 USDC from the Mayan cross-chain bridge and a Kraken user address, then created the NYC-USDC liquidity pool. After removing liquidity at 6:43 Beijing time on January 13, which caused the price to crash, the address 9Ty4M began making small purchases of NYC tokens starting at 16:15 on the same day, continuing to the present.
Further tracing of the cross-chain funds reveals that they originated from the Arbitrum address 0xBc985b167C5F3801B19E2Dec7082c2fcbBF07e91. Continuing the trace, it was found that 90% of these funds were withdrawn from Kraken, while 10% came from an unknown multi-chain active trading address, 0x276fbb81c8a7567ad2412469a549bd4dc82cab65.
2. Transaction Data Analysis
According to BeosinTrace data statistics, the address 9Ty4M has purchased 2,301,250 and 1,566,926 NYC tokens via the addresses FWuiWEdkcR1NLPjozcEuErtGGDZG5kyPu3oszmnF8uni and H7Lnoh82SZghsXmoqffoCiFz7U3D1cwZ8ZPjRUMU7fc5, respectively, on Jupiter. However, the price of NYC has only recovered to 0.133-0.134, with a total market capitalization of approximately $130 million.
Currently, the address 9Ty4M still holds 1,332,243.85 USDC. Excluding any gains from NYC tokens, this address has profited by approximately $330,000 due to the limited liquidity of the NYC token.
Conclusion
This celebrity token launch has once again sparked significant controversy. Token issuance itself involves risks related to compliance, technology, and fund security. The removal of liquidity, which led to a sharp decline in the token's price, has negatively impacted investors and the market.
The on-chain analysis using BeosinTrace confirms the existence of "liquidity manipulation" behavior. After withdrawing $2.37 million in liquidity, the issuer continued to make purchases but only returned approximately $1 million, with the remaining $1.33 million still held in the issuer's address. Users should enhance their security awareness and avoid trading such high-risk, easily manipulated tokens. Beosin will continue to monitor the token's liquidity situation and the fund movements of related addresses to safeguard users' funds.
