On September 29th, 2022, on-chain investigator ZachXBT alleged famous crypto influencer Lark Davis of being involved in crypto pump and dump schemes. Following the allegations, Davis reported to deny the allegations of prominent on-chain sleuth.
According to ZachXBT, Davis promoted crypto projects for which he received an amount as promotion fees, undisclosed. Crypto influencer is said to gain approx 1.2 million USD as a result of his promotion of these crypto projects.
To prove the allegations, the investigator presented at-least eight instances in order to prove crypto influencer’s role in alleged shilling small projects with low capitalization. Davis was shown to promote the new projects via Twitter posts or making videos on them. Soon after he reported to sell the tokens and his crypto wallet seemed to receive tokens from respective crypto projects.
While sharing the intent behind the investigation, Zach talked about getting a lot of requests from investors who said they lost their money after investing within the projects that were promoted by Davis. They asked the investigator to look into the matter closely.
Zach opined the crypto influencer somehow managed to sell-off a significant amount of tokens related to the projects that he was once involved with. It also added the investigation on other crypto influencers but there was never an instance of witnessing capital in such huge magnitude.
In its investigation, Zach found the largest amount Davis received was after dumping 120K SHOPX tokens and generated about 435K USD after the sale. He was alleged to receive the tokens from the project itself in return of a promotion he did several hours earlier.
Zach added in its 17-thread long Twitter post that it’s completely fine when someone participates in funding rounds of any crypto projects and then shares them. Since it’s a genuine and transparent manner, it’s completely fine. However, the same is not the case with Davis who was seen to be involved in a series of dumping after shilling the projects and tokens using his influence and audience base across social media platforms including YouTube, Twitter, etc.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/10/01/on-chain-sleuth-alleged-crypto-influencer-of-fraud/