Within 24 hours, Moodeng, the memecoin based on the viral Thai baby hippo is up significantly, ranking as the no. 1 gainer of the day among the top 500 tokens. The memecoin launched in the past week sits at $0.142 at the time of writing, up over 61% in 24 hours.

The market cap of MOODENG/SOL has now touched $145.84 million at the time of writing, while the fully diluted market cap has hit over $145.66 million. Data from CoinMarketCap also shows that the memecoin’s 24-hour trading volume has spiked by over 38%, reaching beyond 69 million.

The Solana-based token is among the few coins that have reached this market cap quickly after its launch in recent months. The coins TOSHI, TRUMP, DADDY, and MOTHER trailed behind the newly launched memecoin as the day’s second, third, fourth, and fifth top gainers.

Moodeng chart (Source: DexScreener)

The baby hippo, born in July, became an internet sensation this month after multiple pictures of her went viral. Moo Deng means bouncy pork in Thai, and the hippo has siblings with similar names, Moo Waan and Moo Toon. While the two also got some memecoins created on other networks, they did not perform as well as the Moo Deng memecoin.

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Trader earns over $3 million with Moodeng

The viral meme continues to take over the internet, adding to the value of the inspired crypto token. Earlier, a trader who owned 6 SOL worth of Moodeng turned it into a whopping $3.4M in a few days. Lookonchain data showed that the investor bought $1,331 of the memecoin at an early stage, gaining a 2,554x return.

Commenters on X noted that the MOODENG pool only had $1.8 million, making it impossible for the trader to withdraw their funds at Moodeng’s current price. Many commenters on the post also speculated the swift appreciation of the trader’s investment could indicate insider trading.

Lookonchain data from September 26 showed another trader who received 1000x returns from a $95 investment on $INCEPT, gaining over $96,000 in under 12 hours. The data also indicated that most of the wallets that gained around 1000x returns from the $INCEPT project were insider wallets.

Thai-based memecoins perform poorly

According to FWX.Finance co-founder and Kasetsart University professor Udomsak Rakongwan, Thailand-based memecoins have previously not performed well. Rakongwan noted that the memecoins failed because they began in Thailand, citing the ex-junta prime minister memecoin that failed.

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The FWX.Finance co-founder explained that Moodeng was different from the memecoins that came before it. To begin with, Rakongwan explained that while the inspiration was Thai-based, the memecoin did not exactly originate from the country. The professor also noted that Moodeng had become a global sensation, gaining interest from the likes of UFC and Dreamworks.

Notably, the Moodeng X page announced the project’s milestones since its inception. So far, the project has over 40k followers on X, 5.5k followers on Telegram, over 12k holders of the memecoin, multiple exchange listings, and more.