A 23-year-old man committed suicide by swallowing a gun during a live stream about Meme coins, and this tragic event has become a new Meme.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Compiled by: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily

Editor’s Note: As market liquidity tightens and attention resources become increasingly scarce, Meme coins have transformed from entertainment-focused attention economy vehicles and hot news barometers into a wave of entertainment leading to death, an ultimate PVP amplifier of human nature. From the "burn event" on pump.fun, to erotic live streaming tokens, and countless fast-paced yet short-lived insider trades, the Meme coin craze has gradually evolved into a massacre of retail investors by market makers, a siege by conspiracy groups against casino customers. And now, a 23-year-old man from California chose to commit suicide over a Meme coin scam, using his life to satirize and whip the harsh reality that "everything can be a Meme coin." This is his story, and his name is Arnold Haro.

The tragedy in the corners of the crypto world: when suicide events also become Meme coins

A 23-year-old man from California chose to end his life by live-streaming his suicide after falling victim to a Meme coin scam.

On February 21 at 3:28 PM, in a remote corner of a farm residence in California, Arnold Haro was enduring extreme agony all alone. He kept scratching his scalp, accompanied by heavy breathing, looking very pained. "If I die, I hope you can turn my (suicide) into a Meme coin," he said to his fans watching his livestream on X platform.

About three hours later, facing the phone camera, he first picked up a bullet, then calmly loaded it into the Smith & Wesson handgun in his hand, and then rotated the chamber—"bang"—a vibrant life bid farewell to this world.

Subsequently, his dying wish was realized - a Meme coin named after the Haro social media account once saw its market value soar to over 2 million dollars, only to crash rapidly afterward, much like the fate of countless other Meme coins. Of course, this was not an isolated incident. A crypto gold rush followed, with dozens of other imitation Meme coins emerging, some even using live stream screenshots as token logos, as the Meme coin community attempted to seize their share of the profit from Haro's suicide.

Meme coins originated from the rise of Dogecoin in 2013 and are digital tokens aimed at satirizing the crypto world. Over time, a subculture has developed around the idea that "any cultural moment can have its own cryptocurrency." Meme coins associated with celebrities, political leaders, and anonymous fringe figures have flooded the market; they have no intrinsic value and are merely a hype around the memes and related figures that flood the internet.

Image source: Silas Stein/D/Zuma Press

There is no doubt that, during the rapid surge of cryptocurrencies, Meme coins have developed into a part of the $2.8 trillion market, but they have also proven to be a breeding ground for scams—a speculative world where bubbles and crashes coexist, in which token creators amass wealth while other investors end up holding Meme coins that gradually approach zero after a brief surge. U.S. federal authorities view Meme coins as entertainment rather than securities, meaning that many of the protections afforded to traditional asset investors do not apply here.

The Meme coin created with the gimmick of "Haro's death" showcases the brutal side of the absence of boundaries in the world of Meme coins—where anything can become a Meme coin—even a tragic and horrifying suicide.

Arnold Haro's sister, Maria Lucero Haro, stated that the family does not wish to comment on the cause of Arnold's death, but "I don't want my brother's death to become anyone's news headline or entertainment material."

Encountered a Rug Pull scam, Meme coins turned into nothing in an instant.

As Haro becomes more deeply entangled in the vortex of Meme coins, his life becomes increasingly turbulent.

The 23-year-old young man's crypto wallet shows that he has been an active trader of Meme coins and NFTs since the summer of 2024, especially those Meme coins on the Solana chain.

When Haro passed away, the cryptocurrency market had been rising for a year. In January of this year, Bitcoin broke through $106,000, setting a new historical high. Crypto enthusiasts and the Trump administration claimed that the future would be an era of cryptocurrency legalization, with Meme coins becoming an increasingly significant part of it, including the TRUMP token issued by Trump.

But there are so many "pump and dump" scams in Meme coins that they have a specific term—Rug pull. What Haro experienced was exactly this endless series of scams—one Rug after another, making his already not wealthy life even more difficult.

He lives in a rural area outside Fresno, California, relying on his sisters and mother - a house cleaner - to get by. Neighbors say they are low-key, while other family members see him as a fool.

According to police records, he worked in the solar industry and had a 1-year-old daughter with his ex-girlfriend, but they had long since separated. In addition, he owned two cars: a silver Ford F-150 pickup and a BMW X6 SUV. According to police records, his ex-girlfriend stated that, aside from his regular job, he sold drugs such as fentanyl and methamphetamine to some homeless people near the riverbank area. He was also a drug user and had experienced a fentanyl overdose in 2020 that was severe enough for him to need to relearn how to walk and talk.

Under his account MistaFuccYou, he always posts some extreme elements of memes and racist remarks. He boasts about collecting guns, using oxycodone, and has been banned from a steakhouse for not tipping the waiter. After a video of him spinning around and then vomiting went viral, he became a meme in a certain sense, being referred to by people on social media as "360-degree Vomit Guy."

On his personal social media account, there are screenshots and related information about cryptocurrency losses everywhere.

He once asked a crypto KOL known for hyping Meme coins to return 8 dollars, simply because this person did not post enough content.

In January this year, he stated that he borrowed money to purchase the tokens launched by President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump. "I promised my parents that I would use a huge loan to buy TRUMP tokens to get rich overnight, but now it has dropped to nothing," Haro posted on January 19. "I just bought some MELANIA tokens, but with my luck, it probably won't have a good outcome either."

Both of these Meme coins experienced a significant drop after a brief hype, with TRUMP falling 86% after reaching a market cap of nearly $15 billion. Haro also bought a TRUMP imitation Meme coin that quickly went to zero. On January 27, he privately messaged another crypto trader on X, saying he lost his last $500 on a token suspected to be related to rapper Kanye West.

"I tried to sell this token, but I couldn't sell it," he wrote. It turned out that this token had nothing to do with Kanye. A screenshot showed that Haro's loss reached 35.9%.

At the same time, his situation in the illegal drug trade seems to be gradually coming to an end. According to information revealed by his ex-girlfriend to the police, Haro had sold two stolen cars to a Mexican drug dealer in exchange for a large quantity of marijuana. He also told his ex-girlfriend that the dealer had threatened to kill him. According to police records, Haro was very frustrated to find out that his ex-girlfriend was dating another man. "Arnold owes a large sum of money to many people, and he feels very nervous and anxious about it," a report summarizing the police interview with his ex-girlfriend stated.

No one can clearly say what ultimately led Haro to pull the trigger and choose death; the police records do not contain any last words or explanations left by him.

When a death is meme-ified, who is the killer?

After Haro's ex-girlfriend got off work and checked her phone, she saw the death video that Haro posted on account X.

"I called because the father of my daughter is live-streaming Russian roulette on his social media account," she told the police dispatcher at around 5:03 PM according to recordings and police records. "I don't know if this is real."

At 5:43 p.m., police reported the discovery of a male body with a gunshot wound to the head in Haro's room. His mother was outside the house, crying hysterically, still unable to accept the fact.

Six days after Haro's death, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a statement saying that there are no issues with the Meme coins created using Haro's character. "Meme coins are generally purchased for entertainment, social interaction, and cultural purposes," the agency stated, adding that Meme coins should be compared to collectibles. The statement further noted that their value is mainly driven by speculation.

According to the archived version of the video, in his final moments before his death, Haro requested that any Meme coins that appeared after his death be sent to his Solana wallet.

These Meme coins that have already gone to zero continue to trouble his family.

The Meme coin related to Haro's death surged on Pump.Fun (a website that allows users to quickly create Meme coins, as easily as creating a blog on Tumblr).

Some Meme coins use static images captured from live streams as avatars. In the image, Haro has his eyes closed and is holding a gun to his head.

Other Meme coins use his X platform avatar or screenshots from his vomiting video.

The most popular is a Meme coin with the token name MISTA, which once soared to a market value of over 2 million USD, then plummeted by half within a day, with the current trading volume being around 80,000 USD.

A spokesperson for Pump.Fun stated in a statement, "Mr. Haro's death is a tragedy, and Pump.Fun has no other connection to this matter other than allowing users to create and issue obviously unethical, news-related cryptocurrency tokens."

Some token creators claim that they are raising funds for Haro's family and have sent tokens to Haro's wallet, but it is currently unclear whether his family will be able to access these funds. The developers of the MISTA token claim to have donated $5,000 to the GoFundMe platform to cover Haro's funeral expenses.

"Please do not profit from our suffering and my brother's death." Haro's sister said, even though this statement seems so helpless and powerless now.