Football legends Messi and Ronaldinho endorsed a small, Solana-based memecoin called Water on social media this week.
Water's price skyrocketed by 194% following the endorsements, raising questions about its legitimacy.
The endorsement comes amidst a wave of celebrity hacks and memecoin scams, including those on 50 Cent, Hulk Hogan, Sydney Sweeney, and Doja Cat.
Both athletes have a history of involvement with crypto projects, some turning out to be massive scams.
Crypto commentators suspect Water might be a "pump and dump" scheme, with some "evidence" posted by BubbleMaps.
The memecoin landscape is expanding, regardless of what is happening with the rest of the market.
In an unexpected turn of events this time, football/soccer legends Ronaldinho and Messi have both come out to endorse a new, small and relatively unknown memecoin called $WATER.
Considering the ongoing wave of hacks and scams in the memecoin space, there have been no significant signs of hacks on these celebrity accounts, indicating that the WATER endorsements might be genuine.
However, is this a new and "legitimate" memecoin, or is this another massive scam just waiting to happen?
These athletes have a combined following of more than half a billion people on Instagram.
This week, we saw Instagram stories from both Messi and Ronaldinho promoting the new Solana-based Water.
Soon after these celebrity endorsements, the price of Water skyrocketed by around 194%, hitting a market cap of around $65 million in just 24 hours.
The water endorsements
These celebrity endorsements are especially interesting because, in less than a month, we saw several celebrity hacks on Social media platforms, including 50 Cent, Hulk Hogan, Sydney Sweeney, and a more recent one only a few days ago, on Doja Cat's Instagram.
Ronaldinho and Messi's Water endorsements, on the other hand, have been direct endorsements, with no signs of hacks and no reports of suspicious activity.
So what’s the deal with Water?
Both of these athletes are no strangers to the crypto or even the memecoin worlds.
For example, Messi is a brand ambassador for Socios and Sorare, a crypto fan token platform and an NFT fantasy soccer game.
We have seen Ronaldinho back other products like Lingo. However, what if this new $WATER token was something to be cautious of?
The tweet above highlights Lionel Messi’s endorsement of the $PLANET memecoin in 2024, which ended up crashing by more than 90% in mere months.
Ronaldinho, on the other hand, appeared before a Brazilian parliamentary committee on the grounds of his involvement with "18kRonaldinho," a scheme that promised 2% daily returns to investors and ended up as a $61 million crypto pyramid scheme.
So far, the Water project has been met with significant criticism, with commentators like YouTuber Ajay Kashyap and Ponga flagging it as a possible “pump and dump” scheme.
“Is this real or another pump and dump shit,” Ponga asked in a recent tweet. "Stay cautious, boys."
On-chain data aggregator Bibblemaps also posted more "concrete" evidence, claiming that 30% of WATER’s supply is controlled by insiders.
Overall, the official Water website shows that the cryptocurrency will have a "separate, publicly known wallet address to use for charity donations and any campaigns aimed to achieve the greater good" and will donate 25% of tokens to “other charities” it failed to specify.
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