SafeMoon

SafeMoon is a cryptocurrency token created in March 2021 on the Binance Smart Chain blockchain.

The token charges a 10% fee on transactions, with 5% redistributed (or reflected) to token holders and 5% directed to wallets in a different currency, Binance Coin (BNB), controlled by the coin's authors.

History
SafeMoon was released in March 2021. The slogan of SafeMoon, "Safely to the moon", derived from the phrase "To the moon", meaning "to quickly rise in price". The CEO of SafeMoon is John Karony, a former analyst for the United States Department of Defense.

According to Vice, between March 14 and April 21, 2021, SafeMoon increased in value by 23,225% following celebrity endorsements from musicians Lil' Yachty and Nick Carter and YouTuber Logan Paul, social media hype, new exchange listings, and retail investors. At that time, Vice said that "cryptocurrencies like Safemoon still have no real-world use."

In May 2021, SafeMoon announced making a presentation to The Gambia to provide "technology for innovation and learning purposes".

In June 2021, the project began beta testing of the SafeMoon wallet. The app was released on Google Play in September 2021 and the App Store in October 2021.

In December 2021, SafeMoon released Version 2 (SafeMoon V2), an updated version of the SafeMoon contract.

SafeMoon has announced plans to launch its own blockchain, cryptocurrency exchange, hardware wallet, and macro Internet of things infrastructure on its own blockchain.

Security
In May 2021, the V1 version of the token was audited by security auditing firm CertiK, which identified a "major issue" that the project's owners have "control over tokens funded by SafeMoon's seller fee".

Criticism
The token has been described in May 2021 as a "meme coin" alongside Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, with much of its value attributed to the result of a market frenzy.

The developers of SafeMoon have been described as having "little proof of previous success", with the token having been described by some financial experts as "the furthest thing from safe" and that it "doesn't do anything".

After the price of a SafeMoon token multiplied by 12x during a single week in April 2021, opinion columnists in various financial magazines likened SafeMoon to a ponzi scheme or pyramid scheme, where gains to early investors were paid only by incoming investors who expected a similar rate of return, with some citing the fact that each transaction sends a portion of the transacted value to existing holders of the token, as well as a portion of the transacted value to a wallet controlled by the coin's authors.

London Capital's head of research Jasper Lawler noted that the Manual Burn aspect of Safemoon paired with the controlling companies large stake in the coins opens the project up to manipulation by the project controllers.