Memecoin Madness Returns as Barstool Sports, BNB Chain, and an Entire African Country Dabble With Meme Tokens

Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto markets are still recovering from last week’s bloodbath, but it appears that the memecoin fever is alive and well as three big tokens were issued over the weekend.

BNB Chain-based TST token, issued as a memecoin by the blockchain’s community following a tutorial video on how to issue tokens, zoomed to a $300 million market capitalization as Binance founder Changpeng Zhao referred to the token in several X posts — with it even gaining a coveted Binance listing on Sunday.

Zhao, who stepped from a formal role at the company last year, said Sunday that he wasn’t for or against memecoins, and the category’s “fun” element makes it appealing for short-term traders.

“Things with clear tangible value are harder to speculate on. They stay around the clear value,” Zhao said. “This is indeed a challenge for RWA. Memes are fun, etc. It’s a cultural thing. I am not an expert in this area. There are plenty of die-hard defenders of memes. Don’t go against the community.”

David Portnoy, the influential founder of Barstool Sports, jumped into the memecoin fray on Friday with a coin called “Montoya por favor,” inspired by a contestant from the Spanish reality show La Isla De Las Tentaciones.

Portnoy told his 3.5 million X followers that he was “up a billion percent” on his first foray into the meme tokens, helping the coins surge to a market capitalization of $14 million at its peak before plummeting down to a $1 million cap within a few hours.

He has now set his sights on a Josh Allen MVP coin with a playful warning, “Buy at your own risk. I just bought it. I’m gonna sell it. Don’t buy what ya can’t lose.” That coin also shot up, hitting a market cap of over $12 million, before nosediving to a capitalization under $100,000.

Market watchers on X accused him of leading his massive following into a pump-and-dump scheme. But Portnoy defended his trading spree, claiming transparency and even humorously questioning if his actions could land him in jail.

Someone then issued the JAILSTOOL token, a nod to Portnoy’s tweet…which Portnoy then purchased and promoted to his followers.

“I may dump it eventually but I’ll let all you righteous losers dump on each other first. So don’t put in more than you can lose,” he quipped.

JAILSTOOL surged from $1.2 million to over $200 million at peak, even gaining a spot listing on U.S.-based Kraken on Sunday. It trades at 8 cents in Asian afternoon hours on Monday at a $78 million market capitalization.

Here’s where the meme frenzy gets wild — an entire African country has decided to get in on the fun as the Central African Republic apparently issued its CAR memecoin over the weekend.

CAR launched with a promise to aid in national development and to put one of the poorest countries “on the world stage,” its president said on X. The token’s market cap soared to around $527 million shortly after issuance, nearly a fourth of the country’s GDP of $2.6 billion.

“As the second president in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, I have always recognized the potential of crypto and its benefits on a global scale,” Faustin-Archange Touadéra said, linking to CAR’s website.

But suspicions abound around CAR’s issuance, with the site’s domain provider taking it down late Sunday and some X users allegeding Touadéra’s video to be a deepfake.

Solana decentralized exchange Jupiter said early Monday it had reached out to CAR representations for further validity of the token and its official connection to the country.

Jupiter said it was able to verify the token’s deployers using an onchain transaction, but further confirmation and exact relation to the president’s office remain pending as of Asian afternoon hours.