UFC star Conor McGregor took a jab at his former opponent Khabib Nurmagomedov regarding an NFT drop he had on Telegram. The drop included digital items inspired by ‘papakhas’, traditional headgear from Dagestan, where Nurmagomedov is from.

In a now-deleted post on X, McGregor stated:

“There is just no way good guy Khabib used his late father’s name, as well as Dagestan’s culture, to scam his fans and fire sell a bunch of digital NFTs online.”
(Translation: There is no way Khabib exploited his father’s legacy and local culture to deceive his followers with these NFTs.)

In response, on-chain sleuth ZachXBT highlighted McGregor’s past attempts to launch a memecoin named REAL the previous April, which did not achieve the expected success. ZachXBT remarked:

“There is just no way good guy McGregor used his reputation, as well as Irish culture, to scam his fans and fire sell a bunch of digital tokens online and then delete all of the posts after they were sold, leaving his fans robbed of their money?”
(Translation: McGregor also exploited cultural values for personal gain with his failed token.)

Although McGregor’s token was introduced in a sealed-bid auction aimed at preventing automatic trade manipulation, it only managed to gather 39% of its intended launch goal. The funds raised were subsequently returned to the investors following the token’s failure, attributed to various factors, including ongoing issues in the crypto market and a downturn in the memecoin sector.

The current state of Memecoins

Memecoins previously surged in popularity and success but faced a drastic decline by 2025, influenced by a series of unsuccessful launches that resulted in immediate market dips or major scams. For example, one project associated with Donald Trump saw a massive price collapse right after launch.

The total market cap for memecoins plunged to $39.4 billion recently, marking a significant drop and indicating a chaotic environment in crypto trading.