- The GOAT memecoin keeps rising amid a bizarre back story.
- VC titan Marc Andreessen clarifies that he has no ties to the token.
- The rally has lured Arthur Hayes, BitMEX founder and investor.
Despite stirring up a bit of controversy with its bizarre debut, the GOAT memecoin continues to climb.
The Solana-based token is now just shy of hitting a total value of $388 million after a 58% price gain over the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.
Arthur Hayes, who had recently slashed his memecoin investments due to the conflict in the Middle East, found himself drawn back in.
“When I heard about an AI launching its own memecoin and religion, I immediately aped in,” Hayes said on X.
But is that what happened?
The GOAT debacle
Rumours had spread that the token was created by AI — and its rise thus created the first AI millionaire.
But the AI in question, Terminal of Truths, didn’t actually create GOAT — it was tagged by the anonymous creator and then endorsed the token in a series of posts, sparking confusion.
This AI-driven hype even swept up venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who previously donated $50,000 in Bitcoin to Terminal of Truths’ creator, website design consultant Andy Ayrey, for independent AI research.
Andreessen, eager to distance himself, clarified that he had no connection to the token. But by then, GOAT had already gained considerable traction across social media.
The GOAT token was born from the goatse meme, a notorious image from the early 2000s that gained fame for depicting a man in an unusually compromising position.
Its viral appeal came from its shock value and grew among those in edgy internet culture.
The goatse meme’s legacy endures 25 years later.
Now, instead of pranking each other with shocking images, terminally online traders, the so-called degens, push memecoins like GOAT to hundred-million-dollar market caps.
Edginess commands a high premium in crypto.
