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UFC star Conor McGregor criticized former rival Khabib Nurmagomedov for his non-fungible token (NFT) drop on Telegram, which featured digital “papakhas” — a traditional hat worn in Nurmagomedov’s native country of Dagestan. 

“There is just no way good guy Khabib used his late father’s name, as well as Dagestan’s culture, to scam his fans and fire sell a bunch of digital NFTs online,” McGregor wrote in a now-deleted X post. 

Onchain sleuth ZachXBT responded to McGregor, pointing out that McGregor attempted to launch his own celebrity memecoin in April called REAL. ZachXBT said:

“There is just no way good guy McGregor used his reputation, as well as Irish culture, to scam his fans and fire sell a bunch of digital tokens online and then delete all of the posts after they were sold, leaving his fans robbed of their money?” 

McGregor’s REAL token was offered to prospective buyers in a sealed-bid auction to prevent snipers and automated trading bots from manipulating prices at launch. It featured staking rewards for holders, but it only managed to raise 39% of its target launch goal. 

The funds that were raised were refunded to participants following the failed launch, according to McGregor. The failure of the token was due to multiple factors, including a broad downturn in the crypto market at the time and a memecoin bear market.