A crypto token based on a viral TikTok meme has gone parabolic, touching a $500 million market cap just days after launching. Savvy meme coin traders are raking in millions from the launch—including one who turned a $1,000 investment into over $1 million in less than a week.
Just a Chill Guy (CHILLGUY) is a Solana meme coin that uses a character created by artist Phillip Banks in 2023 as its mascot. The anthropomorphic character wears a sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers, with his hands tucked in his pockets—just a pretty chill-looking dude.
This character has appeared to go viral on Gen Z-favored social media platform TikTok, as users couple the character with a caption about men just being “chill guys” despite the hardships in their lives—however big or small.
TikTok isn’t known as being a crypto-native platform, and the success of CHILLGUY has led many traders to believe that a new audience is joining crypto. And this may be true.
On Tuesday, the start of CHILLGUY’s big pump, a MoonPay representative told Decrypt it was the on-ramp service’s biggest single day for Solana transactions. This means that more people were using the service to put money into the Solana ecosystem than ever before.
With this apparent influx of new investors, CHILLGUY skyrocketed on Tuesday and throughout Wednesday from a $11.5 million market cap to $488 million—a more than 4,000% increase.
no relationship, no situationship, no talking stage, no sneaky link. i’m just a chill guy pic.twitter.com/TqRVW8iBj8
— Gift (@cfcgift) November 19, 2024
Over those two days our lucky trader continued to sell chunks of their holdings. At the time of writing, the wallet has sold $411,500 worth of CHILLGUY, according to DEX Screener, while $636,942 worth of the token remains in the account.
This brings the wallets total unrealized gains to over $1.05 million. It’s worth noting that the remaining $636,942 worth of CHILLGUY could drop in value in an instant; the lucky trader must sell these tokens to forever consider themselves a “Millionaire Chill Guy.”
PNUT is a meme coin based on social media sensation Peanut the Squirrel. Image: Shutterstock
Luckiest Trader Ever? From $16 to $3 Million in 2 Weeks on a Meme Coin
It’s every crypto degen’s wet dream. A lucky trader threw just $16.20 at a Solana meme coin only two weeks ago, letting it sit in their wallet for 10 days, watching the value of the token soar. The trader then began to slowly take profits over the next three days. When it was all said and done, they pocketed a whopping $3 million. A Solana wallet starting with “6r3W” bought $16 worth of the Peanut the Squirrel (PNUT) meme coin on October 31 while it was still on token launchpad Pump.fun—a platfo…
Aside from CHILLGUY, the wallet holds over $100,000 worth of derivatives of the token that the wallet hit big on, as well as $13,700 in AI meme coin Goatseus Maximus (GOAT).
Separately, Arkham Intelligence posted Wednesday about another trader who appeared to run up an $865 initial investment to a peak of $6.4 million. However, a representative from on-chain data visualization startup Bubblemaps told Decrypt that the wallet in question does not appear to be a “lucky trader,” but perhaps a “way more sophisticated” effort involving trading bots.
But despite the token’s success, the artist behind the character isn’t happy. On Twitter, Banks wrote, “I don’t endorse or consent to my art being used to any crypto related things. Please leave me alone.” He later put his Twitter onto private so users could no longer harass him.
Despite the pushback, a number of Chill Guy tribute NFT collections have launched—one of which has a 3 SOL ($700) floor. And countless derivative meme coins have launched, including tokens of other characters created by Banks, such as Worried Guy (WORRIEDGUY) that Banks called a “flopcoin,” as it failed to break a $100,000 market cap at the time.
It has since reached a peak market cap of $10 million.
