Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams is awash in a new controversy involving an alleged cryptocurrency scam.

Adams launched his new crypto initiative on Monday, pitching the “NYC Token” as a fund-raising effort to combat “the rapid spread of antisemitism and anti-Americanism across this country and now in New York City.”

“This is more than a token—it’s a movement,” the NYC Token website reads. A “portion” of the proceeds would be used to fund scholarship initiatives and antisemitism awareness programs, according to NYC Token’s mission statement.

By Tuesday morning, Adams was being raked over the coals by crypto experts and traders who closely tracked the coin’s performance. Several watchdogs noted that the rollout had the trappings of a “rug pull” where developers abandon a project after raising assets and leave participants with worthless tokens, according to Coinbase.

While the token’s market capitalization rose to nearly $600 million within minutes, CoinDesk reported that “a wallet linked to the token’s deployer removed roughly $2.5 million in USDC (stablecoin) liquidity near the market’s peak.”

The token’s value immediately plummeted by about 80%, and a Community Note appeared under Adams’ X post about launching the coin: ‘Former Mayor Adams immediately withdrew his liquidity from the coin, in what is typically called a ‘rug pull.’”

About $1.5 million was later added back, but that still left around $1 million unaccounted for. Crypto analytics platform Bubblemaps later flagged NYC Token for “suspicious activity.”

“Given the overwhelming support and demand for the token at launch, our partners had to rebalance the liquidity. We are aware of reports flagging the transactions removing liquidity from the pool,” NYC Token said Tuesday in a statement. “We’re in it for the long haul!”

The statement did not stem the flow of accusations that Adams allegedly engaged in a “rug pull.”

Crypto analyst and podcaster Avi Felman posted a stinging rebuke of Adams on X: “We do not and should never stand for this. Shame on you Eric, shame on you anyone who allows this to exist without criticism.”

Justin Wu, a prominent blockchain strategist and marketer, criticized Adams over the token’s controversial launch.

“If anyone else did this, we’d call it a rug without thinking twice. Call it what it is and stop sugarcoating it,” Wu wrote on X.

MeidasTouch Editor-in-Chief Ron Filipkowski claimed that Adams was able to “pocket $3.4 million after scamming people” only because President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi “dropped multiple federal fraud charges against him for no reason other than politics.”

Adams is no stranger to controversy

Trump’s Justice Department last year sought to drop federal charges against Adams in a move that drew sharp criticism.

Prosecutors had accused Adams of campaign finance violations, wire fraud, bribery and conspiracy. In court filings, however, government lawyers argued that pursuing the case had “unduly restricted Mayor Adams’s ability” to confront illegal immigration and violent crime in the nation’s largest city.

Critics characterized the decision as a quid pro quo, with Adams vowing to cooperate with Trump’s immigration enforcement if the case were dismissed, according to New York Times’ reporting.

Though his case was dismissed in April 2025, Adams skipped the Democratic primary and later dropped his bid for a second term as New York City’s mayor.

Democrat Zohran Mamdani went on to defeat former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in November’s election. Mamdani’s first executive order after taking office on Jan. 1 was to revoke all orders issued by Adams after his indictment on federal corruption charges in September 2024.