A macaque monkey known as Punch that’s emotionally hooked up to his IKEA plushie has spurred on a memecoin run paying homage to Moo Deng’s fame after he was bullied by the remainder of its housemates at a Japanese zoo.
The Punch token (PUNCH) was launched on February 6 as memes and tales across the monkey started to flow into.
Punch was born on the Ichikawa Metropolis Zoo, the place he was rejected by his mom throughout a warmth wave and raised by the zoo workers. He was reintroduced to his group of monkeys however has struggled to grow to be accepted ever since.
Punch is reportedly slowly beginning to make new pals and transfer on from his surrogate stuffed animal.
The little man has been chased and harassed by the opposite monkeys, however what’s caught everybody’s consideration is the consolation he’s discovered with an IKEA monkey plushie.
This virality has led to PUNCH’s buying and selling quantity rising to $46 million and the value of the token capturing up 12,777% throughout the week to $0.031.
A whole lot of memecoin merchants have felt that there hasn’t been “runner” in a while. This can be a sort of token that features important consideration and will increase in worth.
When a penguin from Werner Herzog’s 2007 documentary “Encounters at the End of the World” turned viral earlier this yr, a token themed round that penguin attracted $500 million in buying and selling quantity and hit a market cap excessive of $153 million.
One other profitable runner much like Punch was the launch of the Moo Deng token again in 2024, a token primarily based on a viral child hippo that was filmed biting its carers. The Moo Deng token reached a market cap of over $600 million.
Each tokens, nonetheless, are down over 90% since their all-time highs, like most memecoins.
That is Moo Deng just lately on the Khao Kheow zoo in Thailand.
PUNCH token exhibits indicators of market manipulation
Widespread crypto dealer The White Whale issued a warning concerning the Punch token, suggesting that it’s displaying indicators of “market manipulation” and that the sheer quantity of liquidity the token attracted means that it’s not natural.
They mentioned, “The project and project dev is most likely not behind the things I’m warning about here. The project may or may not be a good project. But this is cabal action. Plain and simple.”
It’s not simply crypto merchants who’ve jumped on the financial potential of a viral monkey, as customers have already prompt shopping for up the plushie monkey from their native IKEAs and promoting them on at an inflated worth.
Scalpers or not, IKEA has recorded a rise in gross sales of the plushie due to Punch’s fame.
The zoo itself can also be experiencing a surge of tourists who’ve come simply to see Punch the monkey.
Punch has even caught the eyes of Justin Solar, the billionaire founding father of Tron, who donated $100,000 to the zoo housing Punch by way of his trade HTX.
