While the crypto market, and memecoins specifically, take a dive, one pungent token is on the rise.
Fartcoin, a new memecoin based on fart jokes, has rocketed to a market cap of more than $1 billion within a span of two months. While investors dump memecoins, leading to their largest selloff this year in the past 24 hours, Fartcoin has nearly doubled this week, reaching a high of $1.24.
Since launching in October, Fartcoin has amassed a large following of holders amused by the token’s juvenile humor. Wylie Aronow, cofounder of Yuga Labs and a Fartcoin holder, attributed its early success to its simplicity, saying that Fartcoin is the “easiest AI token for a normie to grok,” in a post on X on Nov. 9.
“Also, I like farts,” he added.
As the subject of viral social media posts and online discourse, Fartcoin reached the $1 billion milestone faster than some of the largest memecoins, including Dogecoin, which took eight years. Fartcoin even touched the mainstream, gaining the attention of late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert on Wednesday night.
Fartcoin is part of a craze in the crypto world that combines AI chatbots with the creation of jokey cryptocurrencies derived from internet memes. The idea for Fartcoin was thought up by an AI chatbot and executed by an unidentified person who used a platform called Pump.Fun to launch the memecoin on the Solana blockchain, according to Decrypt.
Also in October, another AI memecoin called Goatseus Maximus, or GOAT, launched and rapidly gained popularity on the internet. The coin peaked at a market cap of $1.3 billion in November, before becoming old news and tumbling to $510 million today.
Memecoin investments can be volatile and risky because they largely rely on internet attention, which is often fleeting. Though some coins, such as Dogecoin, championed by billionaire Elon Musk, have managed to secure a recurring role in the news cycle and remain relevant, most solely exist to provide early investors with either major gains or losses in a short time span.
However, like the rest of the crypto market, memecoins have enjoyed a resurgence in investor interest since Donald Trump won reelection last month; the president-elect is expected to promote a crypto-friendly regulatory environment. Since Nov. 5, memecoins have added $41 billion in market cap, rising to as much as $137 billion before this week’s dump. The run has also boosted Solana, a blockchain that many developers use to build memecoins.