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New NYC token, backed by former mayor Eric Adams, plummets as “rugpull” allegations swirl

On-chain sleuths flagged suspicious activity regarding the liquidity of the nascent cryptocurrency.

1/13/26 1:47PM

A new crypto token named after New York City that is backed by former mayor Eric Adams plunged shortly after it began trading, prompting social media allegations of a "rugpull,” crypto parlance for when developers hype a project and extract liquidity.

The former government official, who converted his first paycheck into cryptocurrencies, announced the rollout of a new token in a Monday press conference held in Time Square.

According to the project’s website, a portion of $NYC’s proceeds will be dedicated to antisemitism and anti-Americanism awareness, but it does not detail how the venture will distribute these funds.

On-chain sleuths quickly flagged what they called suspicious activity with the nascent cryptocurrency. An Adams spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

For example, blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps identified wallet address 9Ty4M, connected to the token’s deployer, as creating one-sided liquidity pools for $NYC on solana-based decentralized exchange Meteora at 5:18 p.m. ET.

By 5:43 p.m. ET, the address obtained $2.4 million of USDC from removed liquidity and trading fees on Meteora in four transactions (tx1, tx2, tx3, and tx4).

9Ty4M then returned $1.5 million in USDC liquidity between 5:57 p.m. and 6:12 p.m, but by the last transaction, the price of the token had plummeted.

2/ A few hours ago, Eric Adams, former mayor of New York, announced the New York City token $NYC

It surged to $600M mcap before dropping <$100M pic.twitter.com/QOlCdx5Vv3
— Bubblemaps (@bubblemaps) January 13, 2026

The team behind the $NYC token is aware of the reports flagging the transactions removing liquidity from the pool, according to the project’s latest social media post. “Our partners had to rebalance the liquidity,” the account stated. “The team commenced the funds for TWAP and added additional funds to the liquidity pool.”

The address has since been adding $NYC to its holdings by executing several dollar-cost-averaging orders each minute for the past 16 hours, bringing its total stash to 2.7% of the token’s 1 billion supply, on-chain data from blockchain explorer SolScan shows.

Bubblemaps added that the Adams-promoted venture “is unfortunately reminiscent of the $LIBRA launch, where liquidity was also heavily manipulated.”

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US-CRYPTOCURRENCY-CLIMATE-EMPLOYMENT-CHINA

$82B

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Crypto money laundering activity totaled more than $82 billion in 2025, more than 8x higher than 2020’s figure of $10 billion, according to a Tuesday report published by crypto analytics firm Chainalysis. Chinese-language networks dominated the ecosystem, accounting for roughly 20% of the illicit activity, or $16.1 billion, last year:

“Compared to other laundering endpoints, since 2020, inflows to identified CMLNs [Chinese-langugage money laundering networks] grew 7,325 times faster than those to centralized exchanges, 1,810 times faster than those to decentralized finance (DeFi), and 2,190 times faster than intra-illicit on-chain flows.”

Tom Keatinge, director at the Centre for Finance & Security at security think tank Royal United Services Institute, told Chainalysis that the rapid development of Chinese-language networks is an “an unforeseen consequence” of China’s imposition of capital controls.

“Wealthy individuals seeking to move money out of China and evade these controls provide the impetus and liquidity pool needed to service organized crime groups based in the West,” he noted.

Keatinge told Chainalysis, “The professional enablers of this capital flight provide the services necessary to match these two independent yet mutually beneficial needs.”

Chinese-language networks offer six primary money movement techniques to clean dirty money, which include recruiting individuals to rent out their financial identities, selling illicit cryptocurrency at a discounted rate, and obscuring fund origins through multiple transactions.

Overall, this Chinese ecosystem processed nearly $44 million per day last year.

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Avalanche joins class of cryptocurrencies with at least one ETF

Investment management company VanEck on Monday introduced the first exchange-traded fund offering spot exposure to AVAX, the native token for the Avalanche blockchain and the latest cryptocurrency with an ETF.

The new investment vehicle also aims to provide staking rewards for holders, according to the press release. AVAX, which has seen over $354 million in trading volume in the last 24 hours, is up slightly today. The token is trading at $11.70 as of 1:20 p.m. ET, a far cry from its all-time high of $144.96 in 2021.

The nascent VanEck fund joins a group of its crypto-specific ETFs, including the firm’s bitcoin ETF, with $1.4 billion in total assets; its ethereum ETF, which holds $147.5 million; and its solana ETF, with assets totaling $27.9 million.

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Ethereum treasury firm ETHZilla acquires two aircraft engines (!?!?) in tokenization push

ETHZilla, known for its ethereum treasury, formed a new subsidiary and purchased aerospace equipment in a bid to boost the company’s tokenization efforts.

The treasury firm, through its nascent subsidiary ETHZilla Aerospace LLC, “acquired two CFM56-7B24 aircraft engines, together with all parts, engine records and engine stands” for $12.2 million from Avean Engine Solutions, according to an 8K filing on Friday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The two aircraft engines are subject to lease agreements with a major airline, which were assigned to ETHZilla as part of the acquisition, the filing stated.

The firm’s top priority in 2026 is growing its real-world asset tokenization business and is keen on rolling out RWA tokens in the first quarter, an ETHZilla representative told Sherwood News at the beginning of the year.

ETHZilla’s acquisition of two aircraft engines is part of this tokenization road map, which aims to bring real-world assets from high-value vertical markets, such as aerospace, maritime, and heavy equipment, on-chain.

“In the heavy equipment market, we will initially focus on aerospace assets such as aircraft engines and airframes to tokenize,” ETHZilla Chairman and CEO McAndrew Rudisill said in his shareholder letter from December. “This represents a large, growing market with quality high-yielding assets, and we believe it is a very attractive space for tokenization.”

New NYC token, backed by former mayor Eric Adams, plummets as “rugpull” allegations swirl

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