Memecoin degenerates have as soon as once more put their cash on a swathe of questionable tokens — this time amid the historic sentencing of Sam Bankman-Fried, which noticed him wrapped with a 25-year jail sentence.
On March 28, Choose Lewis Kaplan sentenced Bankman-Fried to a complete of 25 years in prison on seven counts of fraud, making the previous CEO the primary particular person from FTX to face jail for the collapse of the exchange in November 2022 — known as one of many largest company collapses in United States historical past.
A couple of hours earlier than Bankman-Fried’s sentence was handed down, nonetheless, a developer launched a memecoin dubbed Sam Baseman Fraud — humorously sporting the ticker FTX — on the Coinbase layer-2 community Base.
In simply seven hours, the FTX memecoin rallied greater than 23,300%, with market capitalization peaking to $1.5 million on March 28, per DexScreener data,
As many memecoins usually do, the token proceeded to unload harshly, dumping greater than 85% throughout the span of three hours. On the time of publication, the memecoin’s worth has leveled out and is buying and selling across the $0.06 mark, nonetheless down 60% from all-time highs.
Roughly 2 hours following the sentencing, one other SBF-themed memecoin dubbed Som Bonkmon Fraud launched on Solana (SOL).
The Solana-based SBF memecoin initially surged to a market capitalization of round $20 million, a rally of greater than 18,000% from its launch worth of $30,000. Nonetheless, the token offered off quickly, plunging greater than 95% from its excessive.
On the time of publication, it’s buying and selling round $0.0008 — solely barely above its first listed worth.
Associated: Crypto users react to Sam Bankman-Fried’s 25-year sentence
The Bankman-Fried-themed memecoins are the newest addition to a roster of topical memecoins impressed by crypto and political figureheads. A number of different political memecoins, akin to Boden and Tremp have sought to capitalize on the eye across the upcoming United States election.
The memecoin development witnessed a serious resurgence following the upward surge of a Solana-based memecoin referred to as Canine Wif Hat (WIF), which spiked from a market cap of round $50,000 to $3.5 billion in 4 months.
A number of different newer meme tokens, such because the frog-themed Pepe (PEPE) on Ethereum and Rooster-themed Coq Inu (COQ) on Avalanche, have additionally rallied to the upside.
Memecoins are hyper-speculative investments that ofte provide no utility or base valuation outdoors of topical curiosity and hype.
Notably, FTX Token (FTT) — the native cryptocurrency of the now defunct alternate — additionally nosedived greater than 16% on the information of Bankman-Fried’s sentencing, per CoinGecko knowledge.
Journal: 5 dangers to beware when apeing into Solana memecoins
