A memecoin Pump.Fun zoomed from zero to a market cap of $80 million on Thursday, after a father’s appeal for donations in a research study for his daughter’s rare brain cancer attracted attention of crypto traders.
The token’s prices have since fallen 80% from Thursday’s peak and are trading at just over a cent since Friday. But while late buyers are sitting on losses, the effort still raised more than $1 million for the cause.
In a post on Thursday, Runaway founder Siqi Chen said her daughter Mira was diagnosed with a type of brain tumor in September and that research and funding were “lacking” because of how rare the disease was. condition
His GoFundMe page has raised 80% of its $300,000 goal through Thursday, with all proceeds going directly to research efforts at the Hankinson Lab at the University of Colorado.
Chen also posted his Ethereum wallet on the X thread following user requests, then posted his Solana and Bitcoin addresses as users asked for more options.
And then Pump.Fun happened.
The platform allows anyone to issue a token for less than $2 in capital, then he chooses the number of tokens, theme and picture meme to accompany it. When the market capitalization of any token reaches $69,000, a portion of the liquidity is deposited at the Solana-based Raydium exchange and burned.
A user created the MIRA token attached with a photo of Chen and his daughter, with no apparent object except that it is a token that can be traded like any other memecoin. The user’s Pump.Fun profile shows that MIRA was just one of the various tokens that were created that day, with all the others failing to break a $6,000 market cap.
X user @Waddles_eth then bought 50% of the supply and sent it all to Chen, who boosted the memecoin on his X account.
That ensured virality for the token and sent prices from fractions of a cent to a peak of 8 cents early Thursday. The value of Chen’s tokens went from $400,000 to over $18 million as the token went viral. It attracted a peak of $7 million in liquidity (worth in Solana’s SOL and memecoin) as the market became widely traded.
It attracted more than $85 million in trading volume and more than 130,000 transactions, making it the most popular smallcap in the last 24 hours.
“I’ve been on the internet for 30 years and I’ve seen some shit, but this is by far the craziest day of my life,” Chen wrote on X as prices soared. “I will liquidate $1,000 of $MIRA every 10 minutes, perpetually. If I change this program, I promise to announce it 24 hours in advance.”
“If you want to hit $0, go for it — at the end of the day we decided to raise $200K and we’ll end up with at least $1M toward rare disease research,” Chen said.
This is a long read, but I had some time to think about dinner and wanted to share a few thoughts and provide a plan ahead:
0. I have had many very memorable days on the internet in the last 30 years, but this one above them all. My wife yi and I are incredibly grateful to… pic.twitter.com/Aeggjc7vwH
– Siqi Chen (@blader) December 26, 2024
Community response the whole event was very positive, with many users indicating how such memecoins can contribute to positive results in the world.
Memecoins are largely based on virality, attention and community hype. They are considered not serious among professional investors, but have seen massive demand and preference in the past year compared to crypto tokens backed by larger venture capitals – which are perceived as enriching wealthy investors at the expense of the minor merchants.
But MIRA has turned some of the tides.
“I think memecoins are stupid and have no future and I don’t touch them. But if I wanted to make a case for them, now I knew where to start,” said user X @JaEsf. “This is cool and pretty crazy that you can do this with crypto. EVM, Solana or any chain. That’s why Crypto exists! Simplify the movement of assets,” said @mbaril010, another X user.
Meanwhile, @waddles_eth, the user who initially sent half of the token supply to Chen, said that the overall result met his expectations.
Hi @blader,
I am the person who sent you the 50%. $TARGET earlier today.
When I saw the story of Mira and her illness, I thought it would be good to buy and send supplies to you in hopes of getting the SOL community behind a good cause this Christmas. I am really happy that…
— waddles (@waddles_eth) December 26, 2024
“When I saw Mira’s story and her illness, I thought it would be good to buy and send supplies to you in hopes of getting the SOL community behind a good cause this Christmas,” they said in a now-viral X post. . “I’m really glad it worked out the way it did and I hope the money will help find a cure for both Mira and anyone else with her condition.”
Crypto for good may finally become a thing in the new year.
