How does this work? Someone names a coin after his project, pays him commission for every transaction so he will be incentivised to give it positive coverage on his blog, then sells their stake once the value inflates leaving bagholders with worthless coinage and Yegge with his commission?

Edit: Apparently so: https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/01/22/steve-yegges-gas-town-vib...

"I am giving every cent of that crypto money to charity" - https://twitter.com/Steve_Yegge/status/2044114434348724351

Oh yikes, I had no idea it was that bad...

https://steve-yegge.medium.com/bags-and-the-creator-economy-...

Not to get pedantic, but rugpulling is still not strictly speaking “stealing”, because everyone is playing according to the protocol’s rules. Someone controlling a large share of pool tokens can decide to liquidate them and extract the other asset in the pair. Market participants are aware of this risk and who is controlling what share of the tokens at any moment.

This is not to excuse the scummy behavior. I didn’t know Steve Yegge went this low just to make a quick buck, and I lost almost all respect for him.

Anyone who invests in a new cryptocoin in 2026 has to know that it's almost certainly a scam. It's just straight up gambling.