The transient profession of William Banks is among the crypto business’s most weird tales, involving months of staged content material, a faux jailbreak that earned over 10 million views, and two memecoin rug pulls that he claimed raised roughly $50,000 for Palestinian support organizations.
On memecoin platform Pump Enjoyable, the place over 99% of tokens collapse to near-$0, the self-proclaimed comic tried to face aside by utilizing philanthropy to justify his antics.
“Thank you to the crypto community for buying my pretend memecoin and helping me to raise $50,000 for the crisis in Gaza,” he stated a few very actual, not-at-all faux memecoin that he created
“Free Palestine,” he added.
He additionally proclaimed, “William Banks is Robin Hood,” childishly assuming that everyone who misplaced cash in his memecoin deserved their belongings lower than leaders of overseas support organizations.
Furthermore, the legendary Robin Hood didn’t create deep-fake movies to hurt his Merry Males earlier than giving to the poor.
William Banks creates content material for his upcoming promo
Banks’ curious story started in December 2023, when the 20-something comic from Brooklyn stole Israeli yard indicators from lawns in Westport, Connecticut. Police charged him with sixth diploma larceny.
He duly took benefit of his new-found infamy, plastering his mugshot on social media in an effort to shift some merch. In October 2024, he introduced an eight-month jail sentence on X, regardless that he obtained no such punishment.
He then spent 4 months posting content material from what seemed to be a jail cell. This included soccer tosses, theological discussions, and on February 20, 2025, a video of himself crawling beneath a safety fence throughout a supposed jail riot.
Nonetheless, the Connecticut Division of Corrections has no file of Banks being incarcerated. Public data turned up a backstage casting name for a venture titled Jail Saga Actuality Present, posted by an organization that lists Banks as a co-owner.
When Cryptopolitan pressed him instantly, Banks answered, “It’s real. I recreated it of course, but it’s real. It happened.”
One other crypto bro claiming to hate crypto bros
The escape video attracted exactly the form of consideration from crypto promoters that Banks claimed he didn’t need. For months, he’s vehemently espoused hatred for crypto, regardless of his in depth use of the business’s ways.
Amongst those that reached out to Banks was “Jester,” a self-proclaimed “memecoin marketer” who makes use of a Retardio NFT profile image.
Banks denied working with him instantly, though Jester claims he helped Banks launch 4 tokens.
Both method, within the media wave of his manufactured jail break, memecoin operators despatched Banks unsolicited parts of token provide within the hopes that he’d point out them to his rising following.
“They were using me, so I decided to use them back,” Banks justified.
He launched White Moses (MOSES) on Solana-based Pump Enjoyable. After pumping to a market capitalization of some hundred thousand {dollars}, Banks bought his holdings in three liquidations.
The primary sale of about $14,000 induced a 75% worth drop inside eight seconds. After a partial restoration, two additional gross sales drove the token down 96% inside just a few extra seconds.
He adopted MOSES with a second token referred to as William Banks (BANKS), and ran the identical sequence.
His whole haul was roughly $50,000.
On social media, he then shared receipts exhibiting funds totaling that quantity to Palestinian support organizations.
