If the 25 year prison sentence announced today for disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried came as a shock to any, here’s a related development that will surely surprise no one: Degens churned up multiple meme coins to piggyback on the news, which in some cases surged over 30,000% in value before plummeting back to worthlessness.
On Ethereum scaling network Base, some intrepid crypto user created a meme coin called “Sam Baseman Fraud” around 6:00 am ET, hours before Bankman-Fried’s sentencing hearing was set to begin. By 1 pm, just after the hearing concluded, the token (FTX) had spiked nearly 35,000% to a price of just over one cent.
Minutes later, it collapsed. At writing, the token is worth less about 4/10ths of a penny, and continues to trend downwards—though since creation, it’s still up over 9,500%.
That volatility hasn’t stopped degens from aping in, however. Of course not. “Sam Baseman Fraud” has already seen over $3.4 million worth of trading volume today, according to DexScreener. It still retains a market capitalization of $400,000, and $80,000 worth of liquidity—though that amount has been decreasing in recent hours as the novelty apparently fades.
Meanwhile, on Solana, a near-identical, though marginally more creative token—”Som Bonkmon Fraud” (SBF)—lived through almost the exact same cycle, albeit with slightly different timing.
Created yesterday, the Solana SBF token spiked some 15,000% yesterday evening. That streak continued overnight into the minutes before Bankman-Fried’s sentencing hearing began. At that point, though, the coin started tanking—falling from just shy of a penny to under 9/100ths of a cent at writing. It is now down over 90% in the last 24 hours.
For some reason—perhaps the ongoing meme coin frenzy on Solana, perhaps the cheeky allusion to meme coin sensation BONK, or perhaps the Solana-SBF connection—”Som Bonkman Fraud” has seen a massive $24 million in trading volume over the last day. The token retains $146,000 in locked liquidity, and—at the moment—is posting a $675,000 market cap.
Today’s SBF tokens are hardly the first to capitalize on a major news event to spin up millions of dollars worth of capital out of nothing. Such tokens rarely result in happy endings for holders: They are routinely “rug-pulled” by their anonymous creators, who withdraw liquidity and leave investors holding the bag.