So that rapper from Australia who had one hit with Charli XCX in 2014 is shilling meme coins, and long-time market watchers are wondering if now's the time to be scared that the market might crater.

Why it matters: Celebrities, in general, have only face-planted in the cryptocurrency world, leading fans into unfortunate losses.

• Veteran traders and people-trying-to-sound-like-veterans like to opine about "top signals," — that is, signs that it might be time to sell for cash because irrational exuberance has peaked.

Between the lines: Meme coins are surging. Readers of this newsletter have followed along with us as we've charted the explosion over the last several months.

• We told you about political coins, such as Trump (MAGA) on Ethereum and BODEN/TREMP on Solana.
• There's been the rise of Pump.fun, the Solana-based meme coin factory. And the naissance of Runes, the protocol for tokens on Bitcoin.
• It's been a lot.

The latest: A few celebrities have entered the game recently.

• Excuse us: "Celebrities."

Zoom in: Caitlyn Jenner launched a coin on Solana and then on Ethereum, which wrecked the Solana coin.

• Rich the Kid dropped RICH. It seems to be his main priority.
• The one that seems to have garnered the most goodwill so far is Iggy Azalea, our Australian rapper, despite the fact that she hasn't really grabbed the public imagination for a while. Her token is MOTHER.
• (Azalea apparently went on a live social media broadcast for two hours to talk about what she was trying to do with MOTHER, and it's doing well (see 2️⃣) — mostly.)

Worthy of your time: We're leaving out a decent amount of sordid detail around some recent celebrity-linked token projects. Decrypt has more on the controversial influencer who has at least talked with some of these personalities about their offerings.

Past celebrity appearances have been bigger names with worse outcomes.

• Floyd Mayweather endorsed Centra Tech, a "payments" firm whose founders ended up in prison, but got a Netflix show!
• Kim Kardashian Instagrammed about Ethereum MAX, which went to the minimum. She earned Gary Gensler a news cycle.
• Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon touted the Bored Apes in a now infamous segment, which went about as well, in the end, as everything else that Yuga Labs has done since.

The big picture: Celebrity embrace of crypto has tended to mark the dawn of some of crypto's worst moments.

• Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, Naomi Osaka and others were all in the mix of FTX, and that was the hottest of messes.
• In particular, Katy Perry's social media accounts have a knack for calling market tops. In early 2018, she attached various crypto logos to her nails (or someone's) on Instagram.
• In 2022, she posted that she wanted to be an FTX intern.

💭 Our thought bubble: This year's celebrity influx carries some important distinctions. In recent years, celebs showed up because blockchain companies longer on VC money than ideas sought them out.

• This time, celebrities are cashing out directly on their fame — such as it is. In other words, they are chasing a trend.
• So it's not — as has been the case before — a side effect of too much money in the market.

Yes, but: If Katy Perry comes out with ROAR, then sell, sell, sell.

Iggy Azalea's meme coin is inching toward a $100 million market cap, at least for the full supply of the token, which is just under a billion.

• So even a small set aside of that is a pretty decent payday for a minor celebrity. She could get real fancy.

The intrigue: Another meme coin, IGGY, has launched, attempting to ride her brand's coattails, but she has disavowed it.

Zoom out: Pump, the Solana app that makes it crazy easy to mint meme coins, is absolutely crushing, bringing in a total of $32 million in revenue since launching early this year.

• Half of that was earned in May.

Context: Yes, we usually talk about much bigger numbers than a paltry $32 million around here, but the liquidity mechanism for most crypto projects usually ends up being much more roundabout, too.

• But all this meme coin production is lining the Pump team's pockets with actual profits. That's a thing.

💭 Our thought bubble: Anyway! While I stan Azealia Banks, I hadn't the foggiest who Iggy Azalea was before reporting out this little moment in the markets.

• I have now watched one-and-only-one of the newly minted meme coin maven's music videos, while I have watched "212" approximately 300 times.

Denver is now in charge of Utah, within the SEC.

• In a press release yesterday, the securities regulator announced it was closing its office in Salt Lake City, after "significant attrition."

Flashback: The Salt Lake City office was the site of one of the agency's worst unforced errors in recent memory.

• In a case brought against Utah-based crypto company DEBT Box, a federal judge accused the agency in March of a "gross abuse of power."
• The attorneys who led the charge resigned.
• The agency was then ordered to cover the company's legal costs and to bring any further cases against the company to the same judge.

Between the lines: We took a look at DEBT Box when the SEC first announced the case, and it was a very convoluted project.

• On a high level, it seems to make it easy for an investor to participate in validating various blockchain networks all through one dashboard. But then somehow it also seems to envision getting into natural resource development.
• It seems to still be operational, to a degree. It's posted updates to its Twitter, anyway.

🪣 Nearly $890 million flowed into spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds yesterday. (Axios)

🇳🇬 Lawmakers are urging the White House to treat the jailed Binance executive in Nigeria as a hostage situation. (CoinDesk)

🇹🇭 Bitcoin ETFs are coming to Thailand. (Bangkok Post)

🤝 The IRS and FTX agreed to a settlement of around a billion dollars. (Blockworks)

😵‍💫 Bonus: One of the most unhinged crypto testimonials you will read this year. (Reddit)