Enron Returns as a Creator Crypto Scam

Issue #313 | Feb. 6, 2025

For months, a mysterious group led by Connor Gaydos, a former orchestrator of the parody conspiracy movement Birds Aren’t Real, has been teasing the return of the energy company Enron. However, like controversies with Jake Paul and Haliey Welch, it may have been a case of a creator promoting a project or meme coin to their audience before rug pulling.

Rug pulling in the crypto world describes a scam where insiders build hype around a project or coin and encourage people to buy in, only to withdraw their funds right after launch. This tanks the price, leaving investors with a worthless asset.

Enron, once one of the largest energy companies in America, filed for bankruptcy in December 2001 following revelations that the company had committed mass-scale accounting fraud. The downfall of Eron resulted in billion-dollar losses and is one of the biggest corporate implosions in American history.

Gaydos, however, promised to bring the company back. This time, Eron would be a joke nuclear energy startup. “Nuclear you can trust. This is the @Enron promise,” Gaydos tweeted on February 3rd. He teased the launch of a physical egg that would supposedly generate nuclear energy on the Enron Instagram account with Paris Hilton. Last summer, I conducted a parody interview with Gaydos when his stunt was getting off the ground.

At the time, Gaydos and his associates were adamant that their project would never veer into crypto. However, like many creators, the appetite for a quick buck may have proved too enticing. There has been a boom in meme stocks and coins in recent years. Creators who have promoted such projects have faced backlash from fans.

However, Gaydos said he wanted to avoid that drama and would not be producing a coin. He reiterated this message to investigative journalist and YouTuber Coffeezilla in a direct message sent in early December.

“Wanted to clarify,” the official Enron account messaged Coffeezilla, “we are not doing a coin, and all coins on the market are unaffiliated with us. We will be making steps in the energy sector soon that we are quite excited about.”

On Tuesday, however, in a bizarre video posted solely to the Enron Twitter account, Gaydos announced the launch of an Enron coin. “$ENRON is here. This will be the fuel that powers our journey. Join us now on Solana,” the account posted. Coffeezilla quickly tweeted the post, saying, “Heartbroken to find out Enron lied to me.”

The coin launched and, within hours, crashed and burned. Some people with a huge number of the coins pre-launch sold off their large stakes, making certain coin holders at the top very rich. Meanwhile, the price crashed and screwed the rest of the average buyers out of money. The rug had been pulled on $ENRON.

Though the website always noted that the project was a parody, many people still felt betrayed. Months of hype and creative build-up were all in service of a meme coin launch. Others joked about the situation. “If you weren’t scammed the first time by Enron,” TikTok Investors tweeted, “you now get a second chance.”

Gaydos joins a frustratingly growing list of creators and influencers implicated in meme coin rug pulls in recent years.

Jake Paul was among several celebrities, including Soulja Boy and Lil Yachty, sued over allegations of misleading investors in promoting the cryptocurrency SafeMoon. Logan Paul faced intense backlash over his NFT project, CryptoZoo, which launched in 2021, with investors quickly lost money. Paul was forced to apologize to fans, promising to “make things right.”

Last year, Haliey Welch, aka the Hawk Tuah girl, launched the $HAWK token, which quickly soared to a market capitalization of nearly $500 million before plummeting in value to become almost worthless. Coffeezilla spoke to Welch on an X audio space, where he alleged that Welch and her team profited at the expense of ordinary people who invested.

At this point, creators who dip their toes into crypto are playing with fire. There is a huge potential for audience backlash and almost no upside to releasing a coin apart from personal enrichment. Many fans are starting to see these meme coin efforts for what they are: a scammy get rich quick scheme.

– Taylor Lorenz, Passionfruit Contributor

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UPCOMING EVENTS

WORCHBENCHcon is Feb. 27-March 1 in Atlanta, Georgia.
SXSW Conference is March 7-11 in Austin, Texas.
the platform is March 21 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Influencer Marketing Show is Apr. 22-25 in Davie, Florida.

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING

Passionfruit’s Deep Linkers podcast is joined this week by the colorfully commentative Mikey Neumann from his channel FilmJoy and hit series Movies with Mikey.

Mikey started his career in the video game industry before transitioning to being a full-time video essayist. In this episode, we talk about his process, inspirations and thoughts on the creative landscape as a whole. Check it out!