Memecoin degenerates have once again put their money on a swathe of questionable tokens — this time amid the historic sentencing of Sam Bankman-Fried, which saw him wrapped with a 25-year prison sentence.
On March 28, Judge Lewis Kaplan sentenced Bankman-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 for the collapse of the exchange in November 2022 — referred to as one of the biggest corporate collapses in United States history.
A few hours before Bankman-Fried’s sentence was handed down, however, a developer launched a memecoin dubbed Sam Baseman Fraud — humorously sporting the ticker FTX — on the Coinbase layer-2 network Base.
In just seven hours, the FTX memecoin rallied more than 23,300%, with market capitalization peaking to $1.5 million on March 28, per DexScreener data,
As many memecoins often do, the token proceeded to sell off harshly, dumping more than 85% within the span of three hours. At the time of publication, the memecoin’s price has leveled out and is trading around the $0.06 mark, still down 60% from all-time highs.
Roughly 2 hours following the sentencing, another SBF-themed memecoin dubbed Som Bonkmon Fraud launched on Solana (SOL).
The Solana-based SBF memecoin initially surged to a market capitalization of around $20 million, a rally of more than 18,000% from its launch value of $30,000. However, the token sold off rapidly, plunging more than 95% from its high.
At the time of publication, it’s trading around $0.0008 — only slightly above its first listed price.
Related: Crypto users react to Sam Bankman-Fried’s 25-year sentence
The Bankman-Fried-themed memecoins are the latest addition to a roster of topical memecoins inspired by crypto and political figureheads. Several other political memecoins, such as Boden and Tremp have sought to capitalize on the attention around the upcoming United States election.
The memecoin trend witnessed a major resurgence following the upward surge of a Solana-based memecoin called Dog Wif Hat (WIF), which spiked from a market cap of around $50,000 to $3.5 billion in four months.
Several other newer meme tokens, such as the frog-themed Pepe (PEPE) on Ethereum and Rooster-themed Coq Inu (COQ) on Avalanche, have also rallied to the upside.
Memecoins are hyper-speculative investments that ofte offer no utility or base valuation outside of topical interest and hype.
Notably, FTX Token (FTT) — the native cryptocurrency of the now defunct exchange — also nosedived more than 16% on the news of Bankman-Fried’s sentencing, per CoinGecko data.
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