How the World's 'Smartest Person' Became Crypto's Most Aggressive XRP Promoter

YoungHoon Kim, the South Korean individual who has made headlines by claiming to be the smartest person in the world alive, continues his relentless promotion of XRP. His latest move? Calling Ripple’s digital token a “digital God”—a statement that has sparked both amusement and exhaustion within the crypto community. Even the most devoted XRP supporters are beginning to show signs of fatigue from such aggressive marketing tactics. The desperation underlying this endless promotion is becoming increasingly transparent.

One community member captured the sentiment perfectly: “This space is about Engagement, views, replies and likes. The xrp community is massive and we tag onto anything positive we can get it seems.” This observation highlights how Kim appears to be leveraging the massive XRP community size purely for engagement metrics rather than genuine advocacy.

From Bitcoin Maximalist to XRP Evangelist: The Unexpected Reversal

Kim’s public image has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past months. For much of his tenure as a “high IQ” influencer, he positioned himself as a Bitcoin maximalist, aligned with the traditional cryptocurrency orthodoxy. However, this narrative fractured around mid-December 2025, when he began aggressively pushing XRP. By that same period, he was predicting that XRP would soar to $100—a prediction that has not materialized, with XRP currently trading at $1.41 as of March 2026, revealing a significant gap between his forecasts and market reality.

His pivot from blockchain’s most established asset to a controversial Ripple-linked token has left observers wondering about his true motivations. The shift appears less rooted in technical analysis and more aligned with what some have termed “engagement theology”—a strategy of riding community sentiment for visibility and interactions.

Questioning the ‘Smartest Person’ Claim: A Scientific Reality Check

The foundation of Kim’s influence—his extraordinary IQ claim of 276—has attracted considerable skepticism from the scientific community. This number represents a fundamental problem: an IQ of 276 is mathematically impossible to validate through clinically recognized testing methodologies. Standard IQ tests typically cap out around 160, beyond which reliable measurement becomes impossible.

To put this in perspective, on a standard deviation (SD) 15 scale used by Mensa and most psychologists, an IQ of 195 would represent a rarity of approximately 1 in 8 billion people. Validating such a score would require a norming group larger than the entire number of human beings who have ever lived. This basic mathematical reality undermines Kim’s central claim entirely.

The original Giga Society was established by researcher Paul Cooijmans specifically to identify individuals with documented 1-in-a-billion level intelligence. Kim has been accused of creating a copycat organization called the “Giga Society Professional”—a move that prompted Cooijmans to publicly denounce Kim’s organization as “fraudulent” and describe Kim himself as an “impostor.” Adding credibility to these allegations, a former chairperson of Mensa Korea stated to journalists that Kim’s scored results within their organization were nothing “special” by Mensa standards, further contradicting his global supremacy claims.

These discrepancies raise a straightforward question: How can someone truly be the smartest person in the world alive if their own IQ measurements cannot pass basic scientific scrutiny?