SBF Rolls and Dumps Memecoins as FTX Founder Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison
Memecoin's failures have once again placed their currency on questionable marks – this time amid Sam Bankman-Fried's historic sentence of 25 years in prison.
On March 28, Judge Lewis Kaplan sentenced Banman-Fried to a total of 25 years in prison on seven counts of fraud, making the former CEO the first person from FTX to face prison in November 2022 as a result of the exchange's collapse. One of the largest corporate failures in US history.
A few hours before the Bankman-Fried verdict, however, a developer named Sam Baseman Scam launched a memecoin — jokingly the ticker FTX — on Coinbase's Layer-2 network, Base.
In seven hours, the FTX memecoin rallied more than 23,300%, market capitalization reached 1.5 million dollars on March 28, according to DexScreener data.
As many memecoins often do, the token began to sell off heavily, dropping more than 85% within three hours. At the time of publication, the price of memecoin has been fixed and is trading at the $0.06 mark, still down 60% from its all-time high.
About 2 hours after the ruling, another SBF-themed memecoin Som Bonkmon scam was launched on Solana (SOL).
Solana-based SBF memecoin initially rose to a capitalization of $20 million, a rally that was more than 18,000% from its $30,000 launch price. However, the token quickly sold off and fell more than 95% from its peak.
At the time of publication, it retails for $0.0008 – slightly higher than its original listing price.
Related: Crypto users react to Sam Bankman-Fried's 25-year prison sentence
The Bankman-Fried-themed memecoins are the latest addition to the list of themed memecoins inspired by crypto and political figures. Many other political memecoins, such as Boden and Trump, have tried to gain attention around the upcoming US election.
The memecoin trend has seen a major boost following the rise of Dog Wif Hat (WIF), a Solana-based memecoin that reportedly rose from around $50,000 to $3.5 billion in four months.
Several other new meme tokens such as the frog-themed Pepe (PEPE) on Ethereum and the Rooster-themed Coq Inu (COQ) on Avalanche have also rallied to the top.
Memecoins are highly speculative investments that offer no utility or basis other than current demand and leverage.
In particular, FTX Token (FTT) – the exchange's now defunct native cryptocurrency – also fell more than 16%, according to CoinGecko data, on the news of the Bankman-Fried ruling.
Magazine: 5 risks to be aware of when entering Solana memecoins
