It’s called Fartcoin, yes. Indeed, it is completely pointless.
Indeed, it has increased in value over the last week to a market valuation of over $800 million, roughly matching the market capitalizations of Office Depot, Guess clothing, and Steak N Shake’s parent company.
The value of Fartcoin has fluctuated throughout the day since this article was published. It began at roughly $620 million at 7 a.m. on Sunday, reached a height of $889 million, and then petered out at 8:35 p.m. ET at $836 million.
Riding a larger wave of bitcoin investment that was sparked by Donald Trump’s election, the carnival-casino age of cryptocurrency has returned with a fury. Even the losers seem to be in on the joke, even though it’s making millionaires while maybe hurting others.
According to Toe Bautista, research analyst for GSR, a decentralized finance firm, the flood of memecoiners consists of both lifelong bitcoin holders and those who are just frantic to turn their fortunes in an era of sky-priced homes and stocks. According to Bautista, many memecoin traders who have benefited from bitcoin’s 130% surge this year—50% of which has occurred since Trump’s win last month—are merely shifting down the risk curve into regions of pure speculation. Others see the possibility of earning ten times their money in a single day.
“A lot of people think that by having a better chance at winning a lottery ticket, I can get some sort of edge,” Bautista remarked.
According to Bautista, the majority of memecoin buyers and sellers are aware that their trading activity equates to the riskiest kind of gambling. To avoid being left holding the bag and failing to trade up and strike when the price is high, it all comes down to getting out of one’s position.
He referred to the notion that someone else will pay more for a certain memecoin, saying, “Because they’re worthless, you’re betting on the greater fool.” You’re assuming that since I’m early, the bags will be purchased by someone. But its value isn’t driven by anything fundamental.
The biggest risk associated with trading memecoins, which are typically predicated on how long online memes last, is that the meme itself will eventually fade from the cultural zeitgeist. Indeed, a very small number of people can benefit greatly from a particular news cycle. According to blockchain statistics, at least one owner of a coin that was developed in the wake of last month’s Peanut the Squirrel incident—in which a rodent died after possibly being kept against its will by a man in New York—is sitting on almost half a billion dollars.
Since the news item has faded from the public eye, the value of that currency, PNUT, has decreased by roughly half from its peak of $2.47.
The emergence and quick decline of Hawk Coin, which was introduced earlier this month by Haliey Welch, a Tennessee woman who turned a bawdy street interview that went viral into a popular podcast, serves as an example of the operational risks associated with memecoins.
Hawk’s market capitalization reached a peak of $500 million in a single day before plummeting to $28 million, causing investors to voice their displeasure about the sharp decline in value. NBC News has not independently confirmed the concerns.
In response to charges of insider trading, Welch issued a statement claiming that neither she nor any of her team members had sold the coins, instead attributing the sale to sniper algorithmic bots that are programmed to sell as values start to rise.
In fact, algorithmic trading, which has long been a feature of Wall Street’s mainstream trade, is now frequently used in the memecoin sphere, according to Bautista. According to his estimation, half of the top 20 cryptocurrency currencies are memecoins, with bots that are programmed to recognize and react to price swings driving nearly all of their trades.
Is it lawful? Since bitcoin has never been officially classified as a security by the Securities and Exchange Commission, some people think memecoins are allowed. However, the organization has taken action against exchanges that have allowed other tokens to be traded. Crucially, on the majority of cryptocurrency exchanges that sell them, it doesn’t seem like many memecoins, including Fartcoin, can be legally bought from the United States.
Pump.fun, a website that enables users to establish a coin that is instantaneously tradeable with a single click for free, is the epicenter for memecoin launches. Since its launch in January 2024, the website has brought in over $288.4 million, according to analytics data provided by CoinTelegraph, a company that covers the cryptocurrency business.
The Financial Conduct Authority of the United Kingdom declared earlier this month that the website was not permitted in the nation and cautioned that anyone who dealt with a product or service linked to the website had no protections as an investor.
Nevertheless, the terms and conditions of the website provide that the laws of England will apply to its provisions.
The website did not immediately have a spokesman available for comment.
Some solutions have been developed to help unsuspecting memecoin members avoid outright scams, even though it may be the digital equivalent of the Wild West. Rugcheck.xyz is a website that claims to be able to examine memecoin ownership data and assess if an individual or small group of individuals is able to place their thumb on the market scale. By ensuring that any tokens it introduces don’t have presales or small-batch allocations that would favor insiders, Pump.fun claims to prevent rugs, or abrupt price dumps.
The length of the current crypto bull cycle is uncertain, but according to at least one analyst, it is still in its early stages given anticipated events for the upcoming year, including the Federal Reserve’s possible further interest rate cuts and the Trump administration’s adoption of more crypto-friendly policies.
In an interview with NBC News, Gracy Chen, CEO of the cryptocurrency organization Bitget, stated that there are numerous events in 2025 that could contribute to additional increases in the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Indeed, there are already indications that the Trump administration is embracing cryptocurrencies more quickly.According to a Friday Bloomberg News story, Trump-inspired cryptocurrency project World Liberty Financial has been purchasing tokens worth millions of dollars in addition to bitcoin, suggesting that the decentralized lending platform may soon open. Trump has been identified as a potential World Liberty money benefactor.
A request for response from a World Liberty representative was not answered.
However, it is evident that the memecoin universe has a darker side. Crypto is representative of the economic nihilism that has spread among many young Americans who believe they have been priced out of the American Dream, according to Omid Malekan, a professor at Columbia University’s Columbia Business School.
“All the good stocks are way too expensive,” all of these kids said. And homes? “They’re beyond my budget,” Malekan stated. So, I’ll bet on something that can tenfold my money, and even if I lose it all, I’m still screwed.
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