Forget Bitcoin Cults, This Meme Coin Is Literally a Religion

The founder of Solana-based meme coin Church of the Smoking Chicken Fish has officially registered the project as nonprofit and plans to build a physical church in Texas. This comes after the token skyrocketed to a $130 million market cap, less than two weeks after being launched on Pump.fun.

“We're going to try to build a church in Marfa, Texas,” church founder Pastor Kelby told Decrypt on the latest episode of "What’s the Meta?" “We've already found potential property and [our] whales have already donated over [$130,000] towards the purchase of that property.”

Since speaking with Decrypt, the church's founder has visited the plot of land and connected with a building company.

Church of the Smoking Chicken Fish (SCF) was created by Pastor Kelby with a friend, although the co-founder soon abandoned the project. Left alone with a token sitting at a $700,000 market cap, Pastor Kelby decided to “prove a point” by turning the meme coin into a veil to spread lessons from books that have helped guide him through life.

“While we sit here being blessed with social influence, the greatest thing I could do would be to disseminate positive, educative things,” Pastor Kelby told Decrypt. 

With this, the church leader started running daily sermons on Twitter Spaces where he reads teachings from self-help books such as "Think and Grow Rich" and "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership". Hundreds attend.

“These [are] all books that greatly influenced me as a human,” Pastor Kelby explained. “Some have said it's like a meme book club. But the way I see it is: If they changed my life, what can it do for others?”

On top of this, the church has developed its own 10 laws called the “chickenmandments.”

Chickenmandment number three is: Thou shalt work for your bags. Number six is: Thou shalt only smoke Marlboro Reds—in reference to the cigarette that the church’s God "Lord Fishnu" smokes.

On the surface, it appears to be a funny joke centered around a photo of a raw chicken stuffed with a fish head holding a cigarette in its mouth. But Kelby said the project has deeper intentions to “help humanity.”

That includes the property in Texas, where the project wants to build a physical church where its followers can gather. The team also wants to invite motivational speakers, such as Eric Thomas, to spread their teachings. But still, its serious mission will be slightly obscured using humor.

“What will it look like? Imagine walking into the smell of Marlboro lingering in the air. There’s a Marlboro Red dispenser to your right. There’s a statue of Lord Fishnu to your left,” Pastor Kelby finished, “And you see me casually baptizing Raoul Pal in a tub of [chicken] broth.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward