Memecoin Fever Spreads Across Three Continents: From Binance to Central Africa
While the broader cryptocurrency market is still recovering from last week’s market slump, the memecoin craze is alive and thriving as new tokens continue to surface. Over the weekend, major memecoin events took place across the U.S., Asia, and Africa, captivating global attention.
On the BNB Chain, a new memecoin, TST, was launched by the community following a tutorial video on how to create tokens. The token’s market cap surged to $300 million after Binance founder Changpeng Zhao shared it in multiple posts on X. It even earned a listing on Binance on Sunday. Zhao, who stepped down from his formal role at Binance last year, commented on the memecoin trend, emphasizing that its “fun” factor makes it appealing for short-term traders, despite its lack of tangible value. “Memes are cultural, and I’m not an expert in this area,” Zhao remarked. “There are die-hard defenders of memes. Don’t go against the community.”
Barstool’s Portnoy Joins the Memecoin Mania
Meanwhile, David Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports, entered the memecoin game with a coin called “Montoya por favor,” inspired by a contestant from the Spanish reality show La Isla De Las Tentaciones. Portnoy, who has 3.5 million followers on X, boasted about his initial profits, claiming to be “up a billion percent” on his first meme token investment. However, the token’s market cap quickly plummeted from $14 million to $1 million within a few hours.
Portnoy’s next move was creating a Josh Allen MVP coin, which also experienced a sharp rise in market value before crashing to below $100,000. Market participants quickly accused him of promoting a pump-and-dump scheme. Portnoy responded by defending his actions, noting transparency and adding humor to his strategy. This led to the creation of the “JAILSTOOL” token, inspired by his tweet about potentially landing in jail. JAILSTOOL surged to a $200 million market cap before stabilizing at $78 million by Monday.
Central African Republic Enters the Memecoin World
In a truly bizarre turn, the Central African Republic (CAR) became the first country to join the memecoin craze, issuing its own CAR token with a market cap briefly hitting $527 million. The country’s president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, announced that the token was intended to aid national development and bring the nation to the global stage. The CAR had previously made headlines as the second country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, and Touadéra linked the new token to his vision for the future of crypto in the nation.
However, suspicion surrounded the token’s authenticity, as the website promoting the CAR token was taken down, and some users speculated that the video by the president was a deepfake. Solana’s decentralized exchange, Jupiter, investigated the situation, reaching out to CAR officials for clarification. While Jupiter confirmed that the token’s deployers could be traced via on-chain transactions, full confirmation of the token’s official connection to the president’s office remains pending.
As the memecoin mania continues to capture attention, questions remain about the sustainability and legitimacy of these high-flying tokens—whether they’re created by influential figures like Portnoy or an entire nation.
