A middleschool memecoin founder’s dog was stolen as part of a shilly stunt. Or was it?

On Wednesday morning, a middleschooler launched a memecoin called Gen Z Quant — or Quant.

As the token rallied, the child sold a large portion of his stash, pocketed $30,000, and crashed the memecoin’s price.

Traders were incensed, and the middleschooler’s memecoin went viral. Soon enough, hangers-on launched their own coins to piggyback off of the virality of the “Quant kid.”

On Thursday, Yonatan Badash, a 19-year-old who claimed he lived on the middleschooler’s street, decided to wade into the fray.

In an outlandish tale, he swore he stole the child’s dog “Bari” in retaliation for the child’s “rug pull,” or when token holders sell large stashes in one fell swoop, which results in a price crash.

He said he would only return the dog if the child apologised and bought $5,000 worth of the Bari memecoin, whose peak is now nearing about $4.7 million.

Traders believed he was telling the truth.

“I think it’s real,” one buyer told DL News, who declined to be identified.

Theatrics

The only problem? It was all a farce, according to Badash, as verified by DL News.

Badash doesn’t live near the middleschooler.

Instead, he lives in Tel Aviv, Israel. Photos of the child’s dog were instead photos of Badash’s dog. And the screenshots he posted as proof on social media that he was the dog-napper were created in the photo-editing app Canva.

Over a video call, Badash showed DL News his passport to verify his identity, how he created the Instagram screenshots through Canva, and his account on pump.fun, a website that lets users create and launch memecoins.

“What I’m trying to do here is to teach Twitter a lesson about fake news,” he told DL News.

But when asked whether he was also trying to profit, he hemmed and hawed.

“I’m a capitalist, man,” he said.

Later on, after being questioned repeatedly on whether his farce was ethical, he said he would give all of his token holdings away.

“I’d rather have the publicity,” he concluded. “It’s more profitable for me.”

‘Cool stunt’ or ‘bullshit?’

Badash’s theatrics come as a frothy crypto market has spurred a rocket in the prices of memecoins, tokens with no utility other than their ability to capture attention.

Dogecoin, the OG memecoin, has jumped more than 170% to a total value of more than $56 billion over the past 30 days, per CoinGecko.

Especially after the launch of pump.fun, memecoin creators have become increasingly brazen in their attempts to increase their tokens’ prices.

One even set himself on fire.

‘I’m a capitalist, man.’

—  Yonatan Badash

Badash’s memecoin launch is tame by comparison, but it illustrates how easy it is to seize on virality and dupe traders looking to buy into the newest viral coin.

The Israeli said that’s why he put the word “QUANT” into his new token. He saw the viral video of the middleschooler and wanted to capture some of that attention.

“Let’s do something fun and interesting, and yeah, maybe we’ll make money on the way,” he said he thought when he first launched his memecoin.

Soon afterwards, he fabricated the entire tale of the dog napping, and the token jumped in price.

“Damn, I’m making a bank,” he remembers thinking.

While it’s unclear whether he initially intended his stunt to be a lesson in the dangers of misinformation, some publications have written about it as fact.

“I wonder how crypto will react to this idea. Will they say, ‘This is bullshit,’ or will they say ‘That’s a cool stunt, man?’”

Regardless, he’s hoping his theatrics will look good on his resume.

“Not any guy could blow up a project,” he said, before backtracking. “No, that sounds like I’m trying to toot my own horn.”

Ben Weiss is DL News’ Dubai Correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at bweiss@dlnews.com. Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at tim@dlnews.com.