From fallacy to phenomenon: Pipi coin becomes the逆势之星 of mainstream tokens in Q1 this year

Imagine a cryptocurrency with an absurd name and no practical use case, yet it becomes one of the few mainstream tokens that defy the trend and rise in the first quarter of 2025, even causing a sensation on Wall Street, leading traditional investors to collapse.

Famous venture capital founders retweet their tweets, hedge funds are suspected of making large early on-chain positions, top market makers list it as a core asset allocation, and the founder of the market maker publicly admits to holding this token.

This token is Fartcoin, which is “sourced” from GOAT.

Born with a “Golden Finger”

The birth of Fartcoin originated from a conversation between AIs. In an AI agent model called “terminal of truths” funded by well-known venture capitalists, a casual chat about Musk “liking the sound of farts” triggered a chain reaction. The AI suggested: “How about we launch a coin called Fartcoin?” And so, this fart coin was born on October 18, 2024.

Fartcoin emerged like the protagonist of a爽文 with a golden finger, attracting the attention and pursuit of many “love fart” enthusiasts in the coin circle.

On December 13, 2024, a tweet mocking Fartcoin quickly spread on social media. The key to its breakout was not the content itself, but the identity of the person who retweeted it: a co-founder of a major Silicon Valley venture capital firm. Although he did not explicitly state that he purchased Fartcoin, for a purely meme project, receiving a public retweet from such an iconic figure in the venture capital world is already a “capital endorsement” and a “breakout signal.”

More substantial signals come from on-chain capital flows. In the early days of Fartcoin’s launch, when its market capitalization had not yet surpassed $100 million, community analysts tracked on-chain addresses and discovered behavior patterns strikingly similar to those of the seasoned hedge fund Sigil Fund—multiple large purchases, frequent interactions, and early positioning.

This compliance-registered all-weather strategy fund, established in 2018, focuses on speculative narrative-driven assets. Its founder frequently expressed interest in the AI meme sector towards the end of 2024, even retweeting a post on December 13 about “Does Sigil hold $30 million in Fartcoin?” Although there was no direct response, it was widely interpreted by the community as a “default entry.”

At the same time, on-chain data cross-validation shows that multiple strategy pool addresses highly related to the fund frequently bought, locked, and allocated liquidity in Fartcoin during its early stages.

A more active player is a top market maker, whose presence has been seen early on in the front row holdings of Fartcoin. According to on-chain data, this market maker holds 1.56% of the total supply of Fartcoin, ranking fourth. In the asset allocation of its main address, Fartcoin ranks among the top five, even surpassing some mainstream tokens.

Multiple accounts that are highly related to the main address of this market maker were also active synchronously during the initial launch of Fartcoin—from building positions, market making to arbitrage, the operations were seamless.

It is worth mentioning that in early 2025, the founder of the market maker explained the hedging logic of Fartcoin’s over-the-counter trading in an interview and admitted for the first time that he personally also holds Fartcoin, jokingly saying: “I’m just still in a state of being stuck.”

With such market forces in place, it’s no wonder that Fartcoin’s surge is so strong, completely detached from the overall market trend.

According to the statistics of top trader Eugene, in the first quarter of 2025, most mainstream assets will fall into a deep correction: ETH has fallen by more than 46% year-to-date, SOL has fallen by 24%, and the performance of AI, L1, DeFi, Gaming and other sub-tracks is even more dismal. And in this sea of red, Fartcoin is the only green color in the entire chart, with an increase of 14.84% in the first quarter. Against the backdrop of numerous assets, Fartcoin stands out.

Not only did it rise against the trend during the downturn, but after the market warmed up in May, Fartcoin’s growth still led mainstream assets, increasing by over 50%, far exceeding Bitcoin’s 23% increase during the same period.

Wall Street Talks “Fart” Color Change

The popularity of Fartcoin has not stopped within the crypto circle. What truly makes it a phenomenon is its breakout effect on Wall Street.

“We are currently in the Fartcoin phase of the market cycle.” This statement comes from David Einhorn, a billionaire who accurately predicted and shorted Lehman Brothers, and founder of the hedge fund Greenlight Capital. In the investor letter for the fourth quarter of 2024, he analyzes the rise of Fartcoin in an entire paragraph, describing it as “a product of pure speculative sentiment,” and likening it to Pets.com and Dogecoin as representatives of financial bubble phenomena.

It is worth mentioning that Einhorn leans towards the Democratic Party and has established short positions on two leveraged ETFs related to the largest holders of Bitcoin.

In his view, this name itself is full of irony; the meme coin has no intrinsic value, no application scenario, and lacks any substitutability. He even stated that rather than investing in Fartcoin, he would prefer to buy an abstract painting by Jackson Pollock, as at least that painting “is something that people would want to hang on the wall.”

But it is precisely his strong opposition that makes Fartcoin even more noteworthy. When a financial veteran known for “rationality” and “value” begins to give lengthy comments on a meme coin, you know this is no longer an ordinary speculative coin.

Another researcher, Owen Lamont, expressed this more directly. In his report “The Fartcoin Phase of the Market,” he wrote: “I disagree with the statement that ‘Fartcoin is useless.’ Its purpose is to annoy us financial people who think we are engaged in serious work.” The text is filled with anxiety about the irrationality of the market. He refers to this phase as “flatulent cryptoeconomics” and points out that Fartcoin hits the market’s three new logics - nihilism, attention economy, and sheer absurdity.

In his eyes, the core of Fartcoin’s success is not technology, but its ability to spread. It can spark discussions, create emotions, and force everyone who takes the market seriously to respond to it. Even criticism has already fallen into its trap. “Fartcoin is a product of AI precisely manipulating human neural circuits, and if you think it resembles a financial experiment designed by malicious artificial intelligence, it is because it actually is.”

Billionaire Cliff Asness, on the other hand, appears much more relaxed. This co-founder of a quantitative hedge fund and representative of traditional financial rationality is known for his calm demeanor and factor modeling, but he let go of the “rational agent hypothesis” when faced with Fartcoin. He wrote on social media: “Ironically, Fartcoin is the only thing I don’t doubt.” This is a gentle mockery of the absurdity of the entire market.

In this comment, Fartcoin does not disguise itself with “fundamentals” like other assets; it never claims to be an innovative infrastructure, nor does it sell any technological narratives, but rather frankly admits that it is merely an “emotional product.” On the same day he made this statement, Fartcoin surged again.

Interestingly, a few months later, Asness said again: “Fartcoin’s performance today and over the past month, I have to say, I might need to distance myself even more from what Gene Fama taught me.” ( Gene Fama is the founder of the “Efficient Market Hypothesis” and also Asness’s academic mentor )

Does Fartcoin also have its own “micro-strategy”?

The coin named “Fart” not only maintains a market value above one billion dollars but also has its own “micro strategy” - FartStrategy, just like Bitcoin.

When even the “meme” can replicate the model of “buying coins, then buying coins, using positions to support market value,” this absurd drama has really completed the last piece of the puzzle.

A well-known financial columnist analyzed FartStrategy in their 2025 column “Crypto Perpetual Motion Machines,” calling it “the pinnacle artwork of financial nihilism.” The opening line states: “If you can package and sell air, then why not Fartcoin?”

The operational logic of FartStrategy is extremely simple, even blatantly so: this DAO was created specifically for purchasing Fartcoin, and its mission statement is “Hot air rises, and we will ride this wave to create value for Fartcoin and $FSTR (FartStrategy token) holders.”

It has no profit model, no application scenarios, and no stable mechanisms. It is just a transparent joke, cloaked in the guise of a smart contract, packaging “We intend to continue buying Fartcoin” as a kind of “financial strategy” under the name of community voting. Even the official copy does not beat around the bush: “FartStrategy is a comically absurd example, and holding it should not be expected to yield any economic benefits.”

The columnist likened it to a mirror derivative of a certain giant—where the latter continuously raises funds to buy Bitcoin to inflate its company valuation; while the former relies on memes and DAO interactions to self-pressurize the hot air, forming the “Fartcoin flywheel,” a financial perpetual motion machine driven continuously by emotions. He described it as “a leverage container with hot air as its asset,” where when the market value exceeds the actual total value of Fartcoin held, it sells $FSTR to buy more Fartcoin, completing a meme-level closed loop.

From Absurdity to the Mainstream

Fartcoin was born from absurdity and stands firm in chaos.

According to data platform analysis, from January 3, 2025, to May 9, 2025, the chip structure of Fartcoin is gradually shifting from early large holders’ concentration to retail distribution.

Especially from January to May of this year, the growth rate of addresses holding less than $1000 has significantly increased. At the same time, Fartcoin has also become one of the most actively traded coins in terms of trading volume and liquidity in the Alpha zone of a certain trading platform.

From the initial dominance of institutions to the current dispersion of chips. All seemingly rational financial narratives ultimately reveal their true nature in the toilet humor of Fartcoin.

Fartcoin almost meets all our stereotypes of a meme coin: a funny name, no practical value, and it relies entirely on linguistic effects and social drivers for its popularity, even causing unease among traditional Wall Street investors. But its existence may remind us that in the financial world, emotions can sometimes drive the market more than logic.