Crypto: A raccoon brings his master $110,000 via the Pepper memecoin

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Louka Berman says she found Pepper injured at a construction site in May. The videos of their daily life then gave him an online audience. A trader known under the pseudonym “Hiruzen” then took the name of the raccoon to create a token, before offering Louka Berman a partnership allowing him to receive transaction fees.

In a report published on October 28 by Global News, the Montrealer claims to have collected more than $110,000. His public profile on Pump.fun presents payments qualified as creator rewards.

This revenue comes from a fraction of the fees associated with trading. They do not mean that the money spent to buy Pepper returns entirely to Louka Berman, nor that the capitalization of the token constitutes a prize pool available for her project.

The Montrealer indicates that he used approximately $20,000 for personal expenses and debt repayment. He wants to devote the rest to an animal sanctuary estimated at $400,000 and says he has started the process of obtaining the necessary permits.

However, he admits to having initially misunderstood how the product works and expresses discomfort at the idea of ​​profiting from an activity likely to cause losses among other participants.

Because Pepper’s popularity has obviously not ensured the stability of its price! According to the report, its capitalization reached around $2.8 million on October 14 and 15, before falling back to around $240,000 on October 28. This represents a drop of around 91%, without allowing calculation of individual buyer losses.

Furthermore, the Quebec Financial Markets Authority issued a warning against Pump.fun on September 25. The regulator specifies that the platform is not registered with it and that it “cannot solicit Quebec investors”.

Interviewed by the Canadian press, Katrin Tinn, professor at McGill University, finally highlights the risk of confusion between investment and donation. Buying a token for $100 does not amount to donating this amount to the animal project. She considers crowdfunding more direct and more transparent.

A GoFundMe pot opened for Louka Berman had finally raised nearly $3,500 as of October 28. The memecoin therefore brought in more, but at least the donors know exactly what they are financing. A story that reminds us of Pnut, the star squirrel who made the headlines on social networks during a scandal.

An editorial article. Le Journal du Coin, the first French-speaking news media on cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and protocols.

Machine-translated from French