Eric Adams, fresh off his gig as New York City’s mayor, went full degen and launched his own crypto token, NYC. Less than 24 hours later, over half of the 4,300 traders who aped in were staring at red portfolios. The project quickly devolved into a meme coin, with analysts labeling it a textbook rug pull.
Most thought the political meme coin wave had died in 2025 after a string of high-profile launches imploded into massive losses. Adams, however, resurrected the trend just in time. On Monday, the former mayor announced NYC on social media, claiming it was designed to “fight the rapid spread of antisemitism and anti-Americanism.” The rollout, instead, delivered significant losses. NYC surged to a $600 million market cap before crashing below $100,000.
The crypto community, having seen this movie before, immediately looked for insiders. Blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps found that a wallet linked to the deployer pulled about $2.5 million in USDC from the liquidity pool as NYC hit its peak. When the price dropped 60%, the creators re-added $1.5 million in tokens. “The NYC wallet returned some of the money and created two large buy orders to make small purchases every 60 seconds,” Blockworks analyst Fernando Molina told BeInCrypto. “These movements, besides being suspicious, were not communicated beforehand and generated a lot of distrust.” The maneuver didn't recover the price, and the fate of the other $1 million remains unclear.
Investors were left licking their wounds. On Wednesday, Bubblemaps revealed that 60% of the 4,300 traders lost money. Most lost under $1,000, but 15 traders lost over $100,000 each. Molina compared the launch to notorious rug pulls like the LIBRA token from Argentine President Javier Milei. “From a technical perspective, there were many similarities,” he said. “There is no clear indication that it was the same team, but the similarities are striking.”
Adams soon faced accusations of being an insider. On Wednesday, his spokesperson Todd Shapiro denied the claims, stating, “Recent reports alleging that Eric Adams moved money out of the NYC Token are false and unsupported by any evidence. At no point was his involvement intended for personal or financial gain.” He blamed the project’s early volatility on typical new token behavior.
The explanation did little to ease scrutiny. As mayor, Adams was a vocal crypto supporter, even planning to take his first paychecks in Bitcoin. His term was marred by corruption allegations and low approval ratings, costing him a second term. Like Donald Trump, he tried to court crypto voters, but it failed. The NYC Token launch was his first personal crypto project, and it’s off to a rocky start.
