How did sports betting influencer Taylor Mathis get involved in a cryptocurrency scandal?

Over the last few months, sports betting content creator and social media influencer Taylor Mathis rose to fame rather quickly. Mathis was known for her daily posts on social media that featured a segment in which she called “Walking Bets.” She would record herself walking and give her best sports betting picks for the day. 

After becoming successful rather quickly, Mathis soon became a DraftKings ambassador. Recently, Mathis has been accused of manipulating cryptocurrency markets by inflating the price of $TAYLOR currency. She then allegedly sold her own shares before the price dropped. Since the news about the cryptocurrency scandal, Mathis has removed DraftKings from her Instagram bio. Additionally, she’s locked her X account. 

What was $TAYLOR and how did Mathis get involved?

$Taylor is a cryptocurrency that fans of Taylor Mathis created. Initially, Mathis agreed to promote the crypto in return for 2% of the total supply. That amounted to 20 million tokens. She started posting about $TAYLOR on October 16 and the price quickly rose for the crypto. By October 19, it had hit a market cap of $6 million. 

However, $6 million is the high that $TAYLOR would reach and it eventually fell below $1.5 million. Not too long after that, reports emerged that Taylor Mathis sold all her holdings of $TAYLOR. She exchanged that for $16,350. After Mathis did that, the market cap for $TAYLOR fell below $150,000.  

This follows the “rug pull” scheme format where someone manipulates the market by drawing attention to crypto to draw the price up. Then, they sell their stakes in the market to make a profit. There has been no formal word about what the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) will do and if they will investigate Mathis.

How did Taylor Mathis respond to the allegations against her?

There were posts by Taylor Mathis on October 20 in which she tried to explain herself. Mathis said the “rug pull” would be impossible without her as she owns the highest percentage of the coin. Additionally, she made another post on X saying the dip in the cryptocurrencies was not for her. Both posts have since been deleted. 

Not long after she sold all of her stock in $TAYLOR, Mathis purchased 34 tokens for $9,000. Mathis confirmed the rebuys and she’s explained the entire situation through a post of videos of X. We’ll see how this situation plays out and if Mathis will have any legal trouble.