GROK Tokens, Inspired by Elon Musk’s ChatGPT Rival, Pop up on Blockchains

The crypto economy never rests, seemingly jumping from one hype narrative to another in the form of inspired tokens that niche short-term traders can profit from.

Nearly four hundred different GROK tokens have been released by anonymous developers over the weekend, running to a combined market capitalization of tens of millions of dollars, which has let early bettors bag several multiples on their initial token buys.

Anyone can call a smart contract and issue tokens on Ethereum (or other blockchains) for a few cents, and the presence of decentralized exchanges means tokens can instantly be issued, supplied with liquidity and traded soon after.

These tokens are seemingly inspired by Grok, an AI chatbot service by social application X that started to roll out on Saturday. Previews show the service is more uncensored – and humorous – than existing players, which has seemingly helped it quickly gain a cult following.

Announcing Grok!

Grok is an AI modeled after the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, so intended to answer almost anything and, far harder, even suggest what questions to ask!

Grok is designed to answer questions with a bit of wit and has a rebellious streak, so please don’t use…

— xAI (@xai) November 5, 2023

Blockchain data shows the earliest GROK token was issued early Saturday on Ethereum and reached a market capitalization of $10 million as of Monday morning. It has 4,600 holders, and $10 million worth of the tokens were traded for ether [ETH] in the past 24 hours, data shows.

Top holders of this token are sitting on over $150,000 in unrealized gains from initial buys of just a few thousand dollars worth of ether.

GROK pic.twitter.com/mrpAZcIHqF

— GROK (@GROKERC20) November 5, 2023

Another GROK on the Base network has reached a $4.32 million capitalization with $3.5 million in trading volumes in the past 24 hours.

Not every release has been well-intentioned, however. Developers behind at least ten different GROK releases have already “rug pulled” – or removed the liquidity of their tokens – leading to cumulative losses of more than $1 million for speculators.

Such tokens aren’t a new spectacle of opportunistic players creating a s**tcoin market on trendy topics. Developers have previously created tokens based on tweets ranging from Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin’s tweets to jokes from McDonald’s official Twitter accounts.

Most end in tears as the hype fades shortly afterward – with such tokens losing 99% of value in the weeks later.