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Former New York mayor Eric Adams’ new NYC token fell more than 81% within about 30 minutes of its Jan. 12 launch on Solana, wiping out roughly $500 million in peak paper value.
The token briefly reached an estimated market cap of $540 million–$600 million.
Adams unveiled the project at a Times Square event about 12 days after leaving office and tied the token to funding blockchain education and combating antisemitism.
The launch was promoted through his verified X account and later annotated by X Community Notes with a “rug pull” warning.
Adams framed the venture as part of an effort to counter antisemitism.
On-chain investigators quickly focused on liquidity movements and concentration risks.
According to Bubblemaps, a wallet connected to the deployer created a one-sided liquidity pool on Meteora and removed roughly $2.5 million in USDC near peak pricing.
It then added back about $1.5 million after the token price had already dropped more than 60%, leaving about $932,000 not accounted for in that round trip.
Solscan shows the referenced deployer-linked account activity tied to the analysis.
The same reporting also documented extreme supply concentration, with the top five wallets holding about 92% of supply and the top 10 about 98.73%.
It included one wallet with about 70%.
Retail losses were visible in transaction histories
One Solscan-tracked wallet executed five buys totaling 745,725 USDC and then sold for 272,177 USDC.
That trader lost about $473,548 in under 20 minutes.
The speed of the drawdown and the centralized holdings structure meant price discovery depended on a thin set of wallets and a small amount of removable liquidity.
Those conditions can amplify slippage during exits on DEX venues.
Key metrics and developments summarized at a glanceMetricNYCPeak market cap$540M–$600MPost-crash market cap~$87M–$110MPeak price~$0.58Crash price~$0.11Price change-81%+USDC removed from liquidity (est.)$2.43M–$3.4MTime from peak to crash~30 minutes
Eric Adam’s crypto history
The episode landed on a public figure who has spent years linking his political brand to crypto.
According to NYC.gov, Adams arranged to convert his first paycheck as mayor into cryptocurrency in early 2022.
He had previously stated on X in 2021 that he would take his first three paychecks in Bitcoin, including in a post tied to that pledge.
In 2025, he increased his crypto visibility through city initiatives and public appearances, while his political standing shifted after he lost the Democratic primary to Zohran Mamdani and left office at the end of 2025.
Separately, according to CNBC and Axios, a federal judge dismissed Adams’ corruption case with prejudice on April 2, 2025, after the Justice Department sought dismissal.
How US regulation allowed NYC token to exist
The market backdrop matters because NYC arrived after other politician- and celebrity-linked tokens drew scrutiny for fee extraction, insider allocations, and steep drawdowns.
Data places NYC’s 81% crash alongside steep declines in TRUMP and MELANIA from their peaks.
The broader memecoin market cap fell 61% from early 2025 highs to roughly $36.5 billion, then rebounded to $47.3 billion in early 2026.
Volumes also dropped from around $20 billion in mid-2025 to under $3 billion by December.
On Solana, that same material cited a 2025 token creation boom and a low share of tokens reaching sustained trading venues.
That throughput pattern can keep attention-driven launches competing for the same retail liquidity.
Regulatory posture has also shifted in ways that leave retail outcomes dependent on disclosure choices, platform controls, and general anti-fraud enforcement rather than the disclosure regime investors associate with securities offerings.
According to a Feb. 27, 2025 SEC staff statement, many memecoins do not involve securities transactions because they are typically purchased for entertainment, social interaction, and cultural purposes.
The statement also warned that fraudulent conduct can still be pursued by other federal or state authorities.
Since that staff statement, public enforcement activity against meme coin issuers has been limited.
It added that prosecutors have continued to bring fraud cases in other crypto contexts, and states have explored statutes tailored to liquidity-pool theft and similar conduct.
In New York, the proposed legislation would define and criminalize certain “rug pull” conduct based on developer holdings and sell behavior.
That would create a separate pathway from federal securities theories.
For NYC, the immediate questions center on control and disclosure: who financed the launch, what agreements governed liquidity provisioning and market making, and whether promotional representations matched on-chain execution.
Those questions intensified because the deployer-linked liquidity removal occurred at the point of maximum retail demand.
They also intensified because the token’s supply distribution left price formation dependent on a small number of wallets that could sell into thin liquidity or withdraw it entirely.
Adams has publicly promoted the token, while the NYC Token account has discussed liquidity arrangements on X.
Neither has published a detailed accounting that reconciles the roughly $932,000 gap cited in the Bubblemaps analysis.
Ultimately, the story is one I had to verify multiple times to ensure it was not based on deepfake video or imagery. It seemed too fantastical and absurd to be true. However, it appears that this is the world we now live in.
If the president of the United States can launch a memecoin, then why not a former New York mayor? Still, while the president removes liquidity according to a regular, public schedule, leading to a slow decline in value, Adams rug-pulled investors at launch, nuking all value straight away.
US retail investors who bought both NYC and TRUMPOFFICIAL at launch are underwater on both, and it’s unlikely either will instill confidence that crypto can be a force for good.
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