Adams denied wrongdoing as the launch revived political meme coins and drew scrutiny.
Eric Adams, who stepped down as New York City’s mayor two weeks ago, made a high-profile entry into the crypto space with the launch of his own token, NYC.
Less than 24 hours later, more than half of the 4,300 traders who bought the token were left with losses. The project quickly took on the characteristics of a meme coin, with analysts describing the episode as a textbook rug pull scenario.
Most people thought that 2025 had marked the end of the meme coin wave.
After a series of high-profile launches by sitting presidents that ended with hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses, the narrative lost overwhelming support from retail traders.
However, Eric Adams seems to have revived the trend before it was left behind for good. On Monday, the former Mayor of New York announced on social media the launch of the NYC token.
Adams clarified that it was built to “fight the rapid spread of antisemitism and anti-Americanism.”
The rollout, however, resulted in significant losses for most traders. NYC quickly surged to a $600 million market cap before crashing below $100,000.
Having seen these situations repeatedly in the past, the crypto community soon began looking for insiders.
A follow-up analysis by the blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps revealed that a wallet linked to the token’s deployer withdrew approximately $2.5 million in USDC from the liquidity pool supporting trading, just as NYC’s price reached its peak.
When the token dropped by 60%, NYC’s creators re-added $1.5 million worth of tokens.
“The NYC wallet returned some of the money to the liquidity pool and created two large buy orders (one for $200,000 and another for $300,000) to make small purchases every 60 seconds. These movements, besides being suspicious, were not communicated beforehand and generated a lot of distrust,” Blockworks blockchain analyst Fernando Molina told BeInCrypto.
The maneuver also did little to recover the price. What happened to the other $1 million remains unclear.
In the meantime, investors were left to lick their wounds.
On Wednesday, Bubblemaps revealed that 60% of the 4,300 traders who invested in the token lost money. More than half lost less than $1,000, while others suffered steeper losses. Fifteen of them lost over $100,000.
Upon analyzing the launch, Molina drew comparisons to notorious rug pulls, such as the LIBRA token, launched by Argentine President Javier Milei last February.
“From a technical perspective, there were many similarities: the way the liquidity pool (the market where NYC or LIBRA can be traded) was generated had particularities that are not so common in these launches (single-sided liquidity pools),” he said. “There is no clear indication that it was the same team, but the similarities are striking.”
Nonetheless, Adams soon received accusations of being an insider.
On Wednesday, Todd Shapiro, a spokesperson for Adams, issued a statement responding to the rug pulls allegations.
“Recent reports alleging that Eric Adams moved money out of the NYC Token are false and unsupported by any evidence,” it read. “At no point was his involvement intended for personal or financial gain.”
The statement added that, like many newly launched tokens, the project experienced significant early volatility.
However, the explanation did little to ease scrutiny of Adams, who has had a unique involvement in the greater crypto scene.
As New York City’s mayor, Adams cultivated a reputation as an outspoken supporter of cryptocurrency, frequently championing Bitcoin and blockchain technology. Even before taking office, he announced plans to receive his first three mayoral paychecks in Bitcoin.
His term, however, proved controversial. It was marked by corruption allegations and historically low approval ratings, leaving Adams with a difficult path toward re-election.
Echoing a strategy employed by US President Donald Trump, who courted crypto lobbyists ahead of his own re-election campaign, Adams continued to position himself as a pro-crypto politician. That approach ultimately failed to secure him a second term.
Even so, the launch of the NYC Token marked the first time Adams personally introduced a cryptocurrency project. So far, it’s off to a rocky start.
