Recently, a Solana meme coin called PNUT suddenly became popular. It was just listed on Binance on Monday, and its market value soared to $1.5 billion. According to CoinGecko data, its price has risen by a staggering 1,524% in the past seven days, and its current price has reached $1.65.
PNUT is one of the few meme coins that have risen in the past 24 hours. At the same time, market leader Dogecoin (DOGE) fell 6%, while its competitor Shiba Inucoin (SHIB) plummeted 11%. Some other meme coins were also negatively affected by the market correction, such as POPCAT fell 9%, BRETT fell 11%, NEIRO and MEW fell 12% respectively.
The "Musk deal" reappears
The PNUT meme coin was inspired by Dogecoin and has a story about a real-life pet squirrel. Earlier, the squirrel was confiscated and euthanized by New York State authorities because of rabies, sparking political controversy. Trump and some local political candidates accused the Democratic Party in New York of overstepping its authority, and the squirrel became a symbol of the Republican Party and a hot topic on social media.
What’s more interesting is that Elon Musk also frequently mentioned the squirrel on Twitter, posting remarks such as “President Trump will save squirrels” and “A squirrel and a meme coin saved America”, which quickly sparked political discussions. Just like Musk’s tweets that drove Dogecoin to soar, PNUT also saw a similar “Musk effect”.
In addition, Binance’s recent listing strategy also provided a catalyst for PNUT, although Binance ignored meme coins with larger market capitalization and chose to list tokens with smaller market capitalizations such as PNUT and ACT. Binance co-founder He Yi also said that the exemption of listing fees for these two tokens also contributed to their price surge.
After PNUT and ACT were listed on Binance, their prices rose by more than 1,000%, making early investors rich. Other Solana-based meme coins also experienced similar gains after listing on Binance.
AI meme coins remain popular
Another Solana-based meme coin, ACT (Artificial Intelligence Prediction), also saw an astonishing increase of more than 1,720% after listing on Binance. ACT was originally issued on October 19, with a pre-listing market value of approximately $20 million. After listing, trading volume surged, with the decentralized exchange Raydium alone recording $293 million in trading volume, and Binance also recording $60 million in trading volume, with its market value quickly soaring to $422 million.
ACT claims to be a token for the AI community, aiming to promote AI research, education and collaboration. Its founder is Twitter user Amplifiedamp (also known as Amp), who decided to sell all tokens and quit the community after feeling "betrayed."
With the surge in PNUT and ACT, it is obvious that Binance now prefers to choose projects with lower market capitalization and driven by the community rather than tokens with strong liquidity and large market capitalization. This has also caused some doubts in the market. For example, Leonidas, a well-known Ordinals developer, warned that Binance has become an engine for "pumping up stock prices", which may inadvertently hurt the interests of retail investors and exacerbate the unhealthy development of the meme coin market. Some cryptocurrency participants believe that whales and large investors usually quickly buy and sell and leave the market with profits after luring retail investors for a few hours or even a week.
