From Joke to Financial Phenomenon: How PEE Coin Triggered a Defensive Response from Wall Street Elites

In the first quarter of 2024, the crypto market was sluggish, with major coins experiencing significant corrections. However, amidst this red sea, a token with an absurd name rose against the trend, even drawing strong attention and discussion from Wall Street elites. This token is Fartcoin, which translates literally to “屁币” in Chinese.

The Ingenious Ideas of Artificial Intelligence

The birth of Fartcoin is quite dramatic. On October 18, 2024, during a conversation with an AI agent model called “terminal of truths”, the system had a whimsical idea due to a chat about Musk “liking the sound of farts”: “How about we launch a coin called Fartcoin?” And so, a completely meme project was born.

Projects that naturally come with a halo

Fartcoin was born like a protagonist with a cheat code, attracting the attention and funds of numerous crypto investors. On December 13, 2024, a heavyweight figure in the venture capital world retweeted a mocking tweet about Fartcoin, an act seen as a form of recognition for the project. Although he did not explicitly state that he purchased the token, for a pure meme project, receiving attention from top figures in the Silicon Valley investment community is itself a signal of breaking through the niche.

At the same time, on-chain data shows that when the market capitalization of Fartcoin was less than 100 million USD, a veteran hedge fund had already allegedly bought in large quantities, actively interacted, and made early arrangements. The fund was established in 2018 by a group of crypto veterans, focusing on speculative narrative-driven assets. Its founder frequently expressed interest in the AI meme sector at the end of 2024, even indirectly responding to questions about whether the fund held 30 million USD of Fartcoin. Although not directly confirming, it was generally understood by the market as a tacit admission of entry.

More notably, a large market maker was already seen on the list of major holders of Fartcoin. On-chain data shows that the market maker holds 1.56% of the total supply of Fartcoin, ranking as the fourth largest holder. In the asset allocation of this institution, Fartcoin even surpasses some mainstream assets, making it into the top five.

The founder of the market maker later confessed in an interview that he personally also holds Fartcoin and jokingly stated: “It’s just that I’m still in a trapped state.”

Market Performance Against the Tide

In the statistics of top trader Eugene, in the first quarter of 2025, the vast majority of crypto assets faced severe corrections: ETH dropped over 46%, SOL fell by 24%, and the sub-sectors like AI, L1, DeFi, and Gaming were even more dismal. Amidst this sea of blood, Fartcoin stood out with a positive growth of 14.84%, becoming the only green in the entire chart.

Entering May, as the market warms up, the rise of Fartcoin is even stronger, with an increase of over 50%, far exceeding Bitcoin’s 23% rise during the same period, continuing to lead mainstream assets.

The Helplessness and Reflection of Traditional Financial Elites

The influence of Fartcoin is not limited to the crypto circle; it has even sparked widespread discussion and profound reflection among Wall Street elites.

Billionaire David Einhorn, who accurately predicted and shorted Lehman Brothers, dedicated a whole section in his letter to investors for the fourth quarter of 2024 to analyze the rise of Fartcoin, describing it as “a product of pure speculative sentiment,” and comparing it to historical financial bubbles like Pets.com and Dogecoin. This Democratic Party member even stated that he would rather buy an abstract painting by Jackson Pollock than invest in Fartcoin, because “at least that painting is something people would want to hang on the wall.”

Owen Lamont, a researcher at Acadian Asset Management, refuted the claim that “Fartcoin is useless” in a report titled “The Fartcoin Phase of the Market.” He pointed out that its purpose is: “to annoy us financial people who think we are doing serious work.” He referred to this phenomenon as “crypto-flatulence economics” ( Crypto-flatulent economics ), and believes that the key to Fartcoin’s success lies in its viral spread, rather than its technology. “Fartcoin is a product of AI precisely manipulating human neural circuits; if you think it resembles a malicious AI-designed financial experiment, that’s because it actually is.”

Another billionaire and a rational representative of traditional finance, Cliff Asness, took a more humorous attitude. The quant investment giant wrote on social media: “Ironically, Fartcoin is the only thing I don’t doubt.” In his view, Fartcoin does not disguise itself as having “fundamentals” like other assets; it never claims to be some kind of innovative infrastructure, nor does it sell any technological narratives, but instead candidly admits to being just an “emotional product.” A few months later, he added: “The performance of Fartcoin today compared to the past month, I must say, I might have to distance myself further from what Gene Fama taught me.” ( Gene Fama is the founder of the “Efficient Market Hypothesis” and also Cliff Asness’s academic mentor ).

“Butt Strategy”: meme version of micro strategy

After breaking the billion-dollar market cap, an organization named FartStrategy appeared in the Fartcoin ecosystem, operating similarly to MicroStrategy in the Bitcoin world.

Bloomberg columnist and former Goldman Sachs investment banker Matt Levine referred to FartStrategy as “the pinnacle of financial nihilism” in his 2025 column “The Crypto Perpetual Motion Machine.” The article begins with: “If you can package and sell air, then why not Fartcoin?”

FartStrategy is a DAO specifically created for the purchase of Fartcoin, and its mission statement is: “Hot air rises, and we will ride this wave to create value for Fartcoin and the $FSTR( token holders of FartStrategy ).”

This organization has no profit model, no practical application, and no stable mechanism. It is just a transparent joke, disguised as a smart contract, packaging “continuously buying Fartcoin” as a form of “financial strategy” under the guise of community voting. Even the official copy states bluntly: “FartStrategy is a comedic absurd example, and holding it should not be expected to yield any economic benefits.”

Matt Levine likens it to a mirror derivative of MicroStrategy—the latter continuously raises funds to buy Bitcoin, increasing the company’s valuation; whereas the former relies on the interaction between memes and DAOs to create self-pressurizing hot air, forming a “Fartcoin flywheel effect,” a financial perpetual motion machine driven by emotions. He describes it as “a leverage container with hot air as the asset.”

From Institutional Leadership to Retail Participation

According to data platform statistics, from January 3, 2025, to May 9, the holding structure of Fartcoin is gradually shifting from concentration among early large holders to dispersion among retail investors. Particularly, from January to May of this year, the number of small addresses holding less than 1000 dollars has grown rapidly. At the same time, Fartcoin has also become one of the most actively traded coins in terms of trading volume and liquidity on some trading platforms in the Alpha zone.

Fartcoin has evolved from being institutionally controlled at the beginning to having a dispersed distribution of chips now, perfectly fitting the stereotype of meme tokens: a funny name, a lack of practical value, and completely relying on linguistic effects and social propagation to gain popularity, even leaving those self-proclaimed rational traditional Wall Street investors confused and shocked.

In this case, all seemingly serious financial narratives ultimately revealed their true nature in front of a simple “fart”.