Rapper Soulja Boy has apologized for promoting dozens of crypto and non-fungible token projects that were flagged as scams by blockchain researcher ZachXBT in 2023.
The “Crank It” artist’s social media activity between 2021 and 2023 includes several posts promoting crypto tokens and NFT collections to his millions of followers. ZachXBT claims that many of these promotions involved projects that either collapsed within days of his posts, were shut down, or were outright fraudulent.
Soulja Boy, whose real name is DeAndre Cortez Way, addressed the allegations in a statement posted to X early Monday morning. He said he was unaware of the fraudulent nature of the projects at the time and admitted his earlier judgment had failed.
“I want to be clear and transparent. I didn’t know that a scammer named Sahil was involved or paying me to promote something fraudulent. Back then, I was doing paid promos without understanding the crypto/NFT space like I do now. This was years ago and I’ve learned a lot since then,” the rapper turned crypto investor claimed.
I want to be clear and transparent.
I didn’t know that a scammer named Sahil was involved or paying me to promote something fraudulent. At the time, I was doing paid promos without understanding the crypto/NFT space like I do now.This was years ago and I learned a… https://t.co/y4g2Qno6LS
— Soulja Boy (Draco) (@souljaboy) December 14, 2025
He continued to apologize to his followers, saying he was “truly sorry and it was never his intention” to promote carpet pulling projects. “I take responsibility for not doing more thorough due diligence at the time, and I have since taken a very different approach. Growth is learning from mistakes,” Soulja Boy concluded.
ZachXBT listed 5 scam projects promoted by Soulja Boy
According to ZachXBT’s X-thread in April 2023, Soulja Boy promoted crypto and NFT drops at least 73 times since March 2021. The researcher said 16 of the rapper’s touted NFT collections later became scams or failed ventures. reported.
One of the examples cited was a token known as RAPDOGE, which Soulja Boy had separately mentioned in mid-2021. “On July 19, 2021, Soulja Boy tweeted: “let’s pump $RAPDOGE to $.000001 and let’s get all our friends involved, are you in, lilyachty?” Over the next few hours, the project rug was pulled after also receiving shills from Lil Yachty and Quavo,” the researcher wrote.
The RAPDOGE token has since been discontinued and investors suffered losses after liquidity was withdrawn shortly after the promotional push.
ZachXBT also discussed Soulja Boy’s battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which filed a complaint accusing him and several other celebrities of unlawfully promoting tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT).
The SEC alleged that the promotions failed to disclose that the rapper had been compensated for endorsing the tokens, along with actor Lindsay Lohan, WWE athlete and influencer Jake Paul, artists Akon and Ne-Yo.
Two projects known as Orion and The Life Token were also part of Soulja Boy’s pie, which he reportedly used for charities.
“Orion & The Life Token, these two projects used cancer and suicide prevention charities as a means to pump up the price. Within a month of the shill Orion, Rough and Twitter were taken down. The Life Token was abandoned in early 2022,” ZachXBT surmised.
Soulja Boy promoted another project called Flokinomics, which fraudulently claimed to be affiliated with Elon Musk and paid for media promotion to make it appear real, but its liquidity was eventually taken away. According to ZachXBT estimates, the “Superman” rapper earned more than $730,000 from crypto and NFT promotions during the reporting period.
Celebrity is acquitted of the two-year Cryptozoo trial
Several household names have been mentioned alongside failed crypto projects over the past year, but perhaps the most talked about was Logan Paul’s Cryptozoo frenzy. The WWE superstar and online personality closed the chapter on the defunct legal dispute over the NFT project after a U.S. district judge upheld the dismissal of a class action lawsuit accusing him of misleading investors.
The lawsuit, filed in 2023, alleged that Paul and his associates promoted an NFT-based game that promised profits from breeding and trading digital animals. The project never fully got off the ground, leading to claims that investors were lied to and that the effort was a “back pull.”