This Child Made $30K Rugging a Solana Meme Coin—Then Crypto Degens Got Revenge

A Solana meme coin creator who appears to be a teenager rug-pulled holders late Tuesday after his token hit a $1 million market cap. Giddy from the $30,000 he’d just pocketed, the dev flipped off everyone watching his livestream and yelled, “Thanks for the 20 bandos,” as he jumped around the room.

But Crypto Twitter took that personally—and rapidly got revenge.

Over the next four hours, the Pump.fun-launched token named GenZ Quant (QUANT) skyrocketed to a peak market cap of $85 million. If the kid had held onto his bag until that point, his $30,000—not $20,000 according to on-chain data, despite his comment—would have been worth more than $4 million. That's a generational wealth fumble if we’ve ever seen one.

This all started when a photo of the kid behind QUANT went viral on Monday. “Just made $2K before school,” the Twitter post read, from an account claimed to be the kid’s. “Lock in.”

Crypto Twitter apparently found this hilarious, with the initial post hitting over 3 million views as other accounts reposted the image with their own captions. Degens marveled over the idea a kid that appears to be in his early teenage years could generate so much money in crypto.

That’s why when that same kid launched a token via Pump.fun just two days later, it quickly gained the attention of degens. In the 10 minutes that followed the launch, the dev hyped the project on a livestream as viewers and traders joined to watch the spectacle.

“I believe anyone who invested in QUANT and watched the livestream, including myself, genuinely thought it could be a promising coin,” pseudonymous trader Nocci, who bought the token, told Decrypt. “After all, it’s not every day you see a 12-year-old who made $2,000 launching their own token. The hype was strong.”

But as the token hit a $1 million market cap, the kid promptly sold and dumped his bag, resulting in the token’s price falling 54% in a matter of seconds. This has been defined as a rug pull by on-chain data visualization company, Bubblemaps. 

Initially, he acted surprised that the token had dropped so sharply before spinning on a dime and basking in his newfound fortunes—by jumping up in the air, flipping off his viewers, and freaking out over the gains.

This is an extension of the livestream meta that has birthed some of the most viral meme coins of 2024. It all started when a purported mother joined her son on camera to shake her boobs, promising sexually suggestive acts if the token pumped—but they rugged before anything crazy could happen. This was then topped by a Florida man who set himself on fire to pump his meme coin, resulting in him being hospitalized with third-degree burns.

Both these tokens died out shortly after the events took place—but QUANT was different. This time around, the situation was so funny and viral that degens started to buy it up.

“I wasn’t initially [invested] but after he ended the steam I bought some,” pseudonymous meme coin trader Beezy told Decrypt, “just because of how funny the whole thing was and I saw how much traction my tweet [about it] was getting.”

As investors started to pour in, posts about the situation went more and more viral, leading to popular Twitch streamer xQc reacting to it with a total of 181,000 viewers. This led to the recently dumped meme coin touching a $85 million market cap.

“It was almost like a revenge pump where people got together, fueled by the desire to make something out of the situation,” Nocci explained. “They started buying in, creating a buzz, and spreading the word to show that the community could turn things around after being scammed by the kid.”

While the dev may be upset to have fumbled potentially $1.5 million, those invested in the project believe the token wouldn’t have mooned without the kid's antics.

“Him dumping was crucial, it made the narrative,” Beezy said. “Crypto for sure got its revenge.”

The kid missing out on generational wealth was enough revenge for most people, but others went much further. Disgruntled traders found the kid’s real identity, leaking his address and school, and spamming his apparent mother’s Instagram with hateful comments.

Decrypt reached out to his purported mom and two Twitter accounts apparently linked to the de,v but did not immediately receive a response.

After the rug, the kid created another token called I’m Sorry (SORRY), which hit a $4.5 million market cap after he sold at the $400,000 level for just over $13,000. Then another token based on his dog (LUCY) hit a $3.8 million market cap, after he split his supply, selling around $20,300 worth when the token was around a $700,000 market cap.

“The kid did nothing wrong. He never promised a long-term roadmap or the future of finance. It's a meme coin. This is all insanely speculative,” pseudonymous trader SaaS Wiz—who bought the token at a $20,000 market cap—told Decrypt. “This is great for crypto. It's going to onboard so many new people for the bull run.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward