Is Being Indian a Fraud Signal? Arc Traders Sold Like It Is
Tokens on Circle’s new Arc blockchain fell in the past 24 hours after traders said they sold because a builder on the mainnet launch livestream appeared to be Indian. The man in the clip does not work for Circle.
Panchu Vijay Pal runs XyloNet, a third-party stablecoin exchange that Circle’s Arc team featured as a partner in June. Traders sold tokens he has no connection to, on a chain whose block producers include BlackRock, Visa, and Mastercard.
Why Did One Guest Segment Move an Entire Chain?
Circle opened Arc’s public mainnet on Wednesday with a broadcast from New York. The main stage carried keynotes from CEO Jeremy Allaire and roundtables with BlackRock, DTCC, and Aave. A Developer Pre-Show ran earlier, billed as partner highlights and community drop-ins.
Pal appeared in that pre-show from a home setup with a gaming chair behind him. A screenshot spread on X within the hour, where one trader, KR, told 764,000 viewers he had exited.
I just sold everything I had on @arc
— KR (@KR4ATH) September 16, 2026
After seeing this live
Goodnight pic.twitter.com/yxOxrEKhut
The tokens that fell were launchpad and meme assets, not anything issued by Circle. No ARC token trades yet. GeckoTerminal data on Thursday showed TOLLY down roughly 68% and ARGUS down roughly 50%.
Speculators had spent weeks positioning for a meme coin rush on Arc. Launchpads generated 82% of the chain’s $410.8 million first-day DEX volume, and the first selling wave arrived over a face rather than a fundamental.
Does the Data Behind the Stereotype Exist?
Replies to the clip escalated from mockery to dehumanizing slurs aimed at Indians as a group. Crypto opinion leader, “Crypto with Khan” pushed back, listing Indian-born CEOs at Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Adobe. Alphractal founder Joao Wedson quoted him with a longer rebuttal.
“Bias and racism are still very visible on X, especially in the crypto market. When innovation comes from the U.S. or Europe, it is often treated with credibility by default. When it comes from Asia, the reaction is frequently much more skeptical,” Wedson posted on Thursday.
Khan followed on Thursday with a ranking of the ten largest crypto frauds by country of origin, which he said he produced by asking an AI chatbot. FTX, PlusToken, OneCoin, and Africrypt topped it.
If you still think 🇮🇳 Indians are scammers and ruggers then just go to Claude or ChatGPT and type "Top 10 scams in crypto"
— Crypto with Khan (@Cryptowithkhan) September 17, 2026
All are non-Indians ✅
Then type "rug pull" or "Ponzi" then again you'll find non-Indians on top.
Then check the most bundled token launches data by… pic.twitter.com/MLvW2z2vLh
Furthermore, Chainalysis’s 2026 Crypto Crime Report attributes more than $2 billion in 2025 theft to North Korean state hackers, including the $1.5 billion Bybit breach. It traces pig-butchering fraud to compounds in Cambodia and Myanmar.
Circle’s Arc team held up XyloNet as a model project in a June partner spotlight. On launch day, the chain’s traders held up its founder as a reason to sell. Both were the same company’s audience.
XyloNet went live on Arc mainnet this week regardless. The tokens that sold off in Pal’s name were never his to begin with.