Parody trader account receives memecoin gift that grew to nearly $1 million

Richard E. Ptardio, a parody trader account, recevied a large supply of a memecoin bearing his likeness that ballooned to nearly $1 million in value.

Onchain data shows that someone sent Ptardio 700 million tokens of the memecoin PTARDIO, which appears to have originated from the memecoin launchpad Pump.fun, on Dec. 17. Ptardio shared screenshots of his PTARDIO holdings growing first to $54,000, then to around $995,000 as the memecoin's price increased. PTARDIO's price rose to a height of $0.0068 before falling back down.

It's not uncommon for memecoin creators to send large portions of their supplies to either figures associated with the meme or well-known figures in the crypto space.

In October, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin received a batch of the memecoin MOODENG, inspired by the viral pygmy hippo of the same name, valued at $182,000 at the time. Buterin swapped MOODENG for ETH before giving it to a charity fighting airborne illnesses, noting that individuals should give memecoins directly to charity, The Block previously reported. He has done similar moves with previous memecoins.

Update: Clarified that the account is a parody.