The launch event of PENGU, a memecoin based on the Solana platform and linked to the famous NFT collection Pudgy Penguins, has shaken the cryptocurrency market in the past week. While some investors made huge profits, an unfortunate trader found themselves in a paradoxical situation, losing almost all their investment in an instant.

When PENGU officially launched, it quickly reached a fully diluted market capitalization of over 3.5 billion USD in just two hours, with 290 million USD in trading volume.

However, not everyone was able to take advantage of this opportunity.

A trader attempted to exchange 45 Solana (approximately 10,000 USD) for PENGU through the Jupiter platform, but instead of receiving a significant amount of tokens, they only received 78 PENGU tokens worth less than 3 USD.

The Cause of Costly Mistakes

The error occurred because the investor accidentally traded through an unofficial liquidity pool on Raydium.

  • Low liquidity combined with the automated pricing mechanism on DEXs caused the token price to spike unusually.

  • The lack of thorough checks on market value led the investor to fall into a slippage trap.

As a result, PENGU's market capitalization was inflated to 14 trillion USD, a completely unrealistic figure.

Warnings from Experts

An anonymous trader known as crea commented:

"This is a costly lesson. Someone created a fake liquidity pool beforehand, and this trade jumped into that pool."

Investors often use bots to 'sniper' tokens right at launch, hoping to buy at the lowest price.

However, in this case, the strategy backfired. The trader probably did not use a bot or overlooked verifying the contract and market value.

Lessons for Crypto Investors

This incident serves as a wake-up call for investors, especially in the volatile memecoin sector:

  • Always thoroughly check the smart contract and verify the liquidity pool before trading.

  • Avoid FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) when a token is just launched, as this is the time when pricing errors are most likely to occur.

Will PENGU become a successful memecoin or just a short-term story? For investors like this one, it will probably be a lifelong lesson!