UFC star Conor McGregor criticized former rival Khabib Nurmagomedov’s non-fungible token (NFT) drop in a Telegram featuring a digital “papaka” (a traditional hat worn in Nurmagomedov’s home country of Dagestan).
“There is no way that good Khabib would use his late father’s name and Dagestani culture to deceive his fans and dump tons of digital NFTs online,” McGregor wrote in a now-deleted X post.
On-chain detective ZachXBT responded to McGregor, pointing out that McGregor attempted to launch his own celebrity meme coin called REAL in April. Zack XBT said:
“How could a good McGregor use his reputation and Irish culture to deceive his fans, sell them a bunch of digital tokens online, then delete all posts after the sale and leave his fans deprived of their money?”
McGregor’s REAL tokens were offered to prospective buyers in a sealed bid auction to prevent snipers and automated trading bots from manipulating the price at launch. Staking rewards were available for holders, but they were only able to collect 39% of their target launch goal.
McGregor said the money raised was refunded to participants after the launch failed. The token’s failure was due to multiple factors, including a significant downturn in the cryptocurrency market at the time and a bear market in meme coins.
Related: NFT and meme coin markets recover from month-long crypto slump
Meme Coin has fallen from grace, but will it come back?
Memecoins were one of the hottest and best-performing sectors of the crypto market in 2024. However, the parabolic rise that memecoins enjoyed came to a screeching halt in 2025.
Memecoin’s decline follows several high-profile launches that have seen their value plummet or have the rug pulled from under them shortly after launch, including projects backed by US President Donald Trump and Argentine President Javier Millei.
On Friday, the market cap of meme coins fell to $39.4 billion, hitting an all-time low in 2025 and dropping as much as $5 billion in a single day, according to CoinMarketCap.
magazine: Memecoin: A betrayal of cryptocurrencies’ ideals…or their true purpose?
