How a Sports Brand Used Fake Celebs to Pump an ‘Insane’ Cryptocurrency

A nutritional supplements company allegedly paid a group of online trolls to impersonate celebrities, fool its investors, and pump its token. And the scheme worked—for a while. Then it all unraveled.

Insane Labz, an Arkansas-based supplements company known throughout the MMA and Barstool Sports world—and a former client of Gary Vaynerchuk’s startup mentorship program, launched its LABZ token in May. On its roadmap, the project promised to collaborate with “vetted celebrities.” Instead, it encouraged trolls to impersonate celebrities—like UFC President Dana White, MMA legend Nate Diaz, and social media sensation Hasbulla—and hype up the LABZ token in the company’s Telegram group. 

The scheme helped pump the LABZ token from a $3 million market cap to $15 million at its peak. The coin is now nearly worthless, collapsing by more than 90%. But not before the obvious fakery fooled some less-discerning investors into buying in.

“I thought it was gonna be huge,” one investor who wished to remain anonymous told Decrypt. “[It] was supposed to get endorsed by Dana White [and] was gonna be advertised on the UFC. I dropped in another few hundred dollars,” he said, claiming to have lost over $475 in total. It was “a lot” for the investor, he said. 

Insane Labz did not respond to Decrypt’s request for comment. Multiple emails and phone calls to the company went unanswered.

Blockchain data reviewed by Decrypt and chain analysis company Bubblemaps shows that a crypto wallet linked to the Insane Labz team paid the group of trolls a small sum, $155 in Solana each.

“We just did it for a laugh that got a bit out of hand,” one of the impersonators told Decrypt. 

“Hasbulla” enters the chat

The first fake celebrity—“TheOfficialHasbulla”—joined the Insane Labz Telegram chat on May 16. The account appeared to belong to Hasbulla Magomedovich Magomedov, an influencer from the Russian Republic of Dagestan with 8 million Instagram followers. The real Magomedov does not speak English, so the fake influencer, playing the part, only communicated through Russian Google translate and GIFs. 

Nonetheless, some users in the Labz chat questioned if he was the real deal. The Insane Labz Telegram group moderator played it coy. “Maybe he’s real,” Insane Labz replied in the Telegram group. “I know something you don’t know yet,” it said in another message, “I choose to let you know through cryptic messages.” 

The reaction was immediate. 

The Insane Labz token jumped 115% over 12 hours. At that point, wallets linked to the company had not yet sent a payment to the fake Hasbulla. Two wallets linked to Insane Labz sold approximately $12,450 worth of LABZ tokens over this period, while also purchasing more tokens.

The largest single sale of LABZ took place just three days later, on May 19, as the price of the token, while off its peak, was still riding high. An unidentified whale offloaded over $70,000 worth of the token, profiting approximately $68,000 after purchasing LABZ the day the token launched.

The Hasbulla impersonator told Decrypt his friends joined the group over the next two weeks—a fake Dana White, the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and a phony Nate Diaz, a beloved UFC fighter perhaps best known for besting Conor McGregor.

The fake Hasbulla often joined groups pretending to be the famous Dagestani, the Diaz impersonator explained. “Then when we saw the [Insane Labz] reaction to Hasbulla being in the chat, we thought we would change our handles and join for the lols,” he said.

“Hasbulla is not aware of this company or its coin,” Hasbulla’s business manager Justin Ozuna, who secured the Dagestani a 5-year promotional contract with the UFC, told Decrypt. “I highly assume this is the case with Dana and Nate as well.”

Another investor in the LABZ token who was part of the Telegram group told Decrypt that the company not only encouraged the impersonators but “leaned into the narrative in a big way.”

Insane Labz “created LABZ token emojis with [the celebrities’] faces on them, [and] would hype the chat whenever they posted,” the investor, who wished to remain anonymous, told Decrypt. The investor claimed Insane Labz CEO Dustin Lebleu even pretended to have a FaceTime chat wth the real Dana White regarding the project.

“The founder of the token posted about a FaceTime he had with ‘Dana White,’ asking ‘Dana’ if he had any screenshots of the chat,” the investor said, referring to Lebleu. Members of the Telegram chat, including the trolls and individual investors, say they believe it was Lebleu who ran the account.

“He later posted what I believe to be a doctored photo of a FaceTime chat to make it seem legit,” the investor said, providing a screenshot of the photo from the Insane Labz Telegram group.

The fake Dana White told the official Insane Labz Telegram group on May 28 that he planned to give away four tickets to an upcoming UFC event. The Insane Labz team ran with it, and promoted the giveaway on Twitter. In turn, the LABZ token pumped 17%, and the impersonators say this is when the Labz team reached out to the fake White to offer payment and keep the ruse going.

The impersonators claim that the official Insane Labz account approached the fake Dana White and offered to pay the troll and his friends to continue sending messages in the Telegram chat. Eventually, they settled on 1 Solana (approximately $155) each, paid weekly.

Data company Bubblemaps found a link between one of the payment wallets from which the impersonators were sent 1 SOL ($150) each and the wallet that originally created the LABZ token. Wallet DvFne1 sent 150 SOL ($24,000) to wallet CLrC8m, which would later pay the impersonators a total of 3 SOL ($459). The original DvFne1 wallet also funded the address FtfPXX that minted the LABZ token.

“We can assume the central wallet (DvFne1) is a team wallet because it is the wallet that first funded FtfPXX, which is the minting wallet,” Bubblemaps lead investigator Thomas Perrin told Decrypt. “Therefore, the payment wallets are heavily linked to the team wallets.”

Perrin also asserted that the patterns of the payments (i.e. sending funds through multiple different wallets) are suspicious. “Why not use a marketing tagged wallet?” he asked.

Decrypt also reviewed Telegram screenshots provided by the impersonators that they say show the Labz team coordinating payments and providing payment transaction links the moment they were made. 

“That would be sick”

Over the next month a total of 15 SOL was sent to the impersonators’ wallets, which they claim was sent by Insane Labz. All the while, LABZ token investors were made to believe the celebrity endorsements were real.

The chat erupted when “Nate Diaz” said he’d been busy training for his next fight. They also loved it when he told investors to watch their tone in the chat. Some LABZ holders took to Twitter to flex that they’d interacted with their favorite celebs.

Conversations between the trolls and Insane Labz make clear that the company actively encouraged the deception. In a separate Telegram group chat called “Labz UFC hype group,” according to screenshots provided by the impersonators, the person running the Insane Labz account joked with the fake celebs. 

“I was thinking the real Nate would flip the fuck out right now haha,” wrote the fake Nate Diaz in the private chat. “Hahaha you are the real Nate…” the Labz account apparently replied.

The most obvious fakery involved Hasbulla, who doesn’t speak English—but his impersonator spoke it fluently while in this chat. At one point, screenshots show the Hasbulla troll told the private chat he’d try to find a Hasbulla text-to-voice AI to create voice notes. 

“That would be sick,” the Labz account wrote in response. 

The fake celebs say their Telegram inboxes were inundated with hundreds of messages and calls from fans wanting to chat and prove they’re real.

“It became apparent to me that the whole thing was fraudulent, that the founders were fully aware these people were not the real Dana white et al, and were using their celebrity to boost the price of the coin,” a LABZ token investor told Decrypt. “I sold my tokens at that point and left the group.”

It didn’t last long

Eventually, the hype died out and the token’s price fell. In response, the impersonators claim that the Labz team asked them if the lead singer of Nickelback, Chad Kroeger, could be added. They obliged.

After a fake Kroeger account was added on June 27, the token pumped 17%. But this was short-lived. The token tumbled 74% over the next two weeks. Communications between the fake celebrities and Insane Labz started to break down.

After someone who the group believed to be a reporter joined the Labz group chat and messaged ‘Dana White,’ the Insane Labz team instructed the fake celebs to stop posting. That night, the Telegram chat was deleted. On its official Twitter account, Insane Labz claimed the group had been deleted because they had received death threats.

Now that it’s all over, the trolls say they don’t feel bad about impersonating celebrities.

“I’ve had this handle for years and I’ve been in hundreds of Telegrams—not once has anyone played along,” fake Hasbulla told Decrypt. “Anyone with half a brain cell will be able to know it’s a Telegram name and nothing more.”

Prior to its crypto pivot, the Arkansas-based Insane Labz, founded in 2014, was best known for its pre-workout powders that retired MMA fighter Brendan Schaub once jokingly claimed was made with meth and viagra. Its products are sold at online retailers like Amazon and Walmart, and the company generates roughly $15.2 million in revenue each year, according to data on Zoominfo. 

The company’s founder and CEO Dustin Lebleu was a client of VaynorMentors, a startup consulting service run by famed entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, better known as Gary Vee.

Vaynerchuck spoke glowingly of Lebleu in a 2019 blog post that was deleted shortly after Decrypt reached out to Vaynerchuk’s representatives for comment. “Gary is away with family this week, but we can confirm no official affiliation or endorsement between Gary/VaynerX and Insane Labz since a brief consulting engagement in 2018,” a Vaynerchuk representative told Decrypt.