The Odd Coin of the Crypto Market: The Rise of Fartcoin

An absurdly named cryptocurrency with no practical use has unexpectedly become one of the few mainstream coins to rise against the trend in the first quarter of this year, even attracting widespread attention from Wall Street and catching traditional investors off guard.

The co-founder of a well-known venture capital firm retweeted a related tweet, a hedge fund is suspected of making a large purchase early on, and a top market maker has listed it as a core asset allocation. The founder of that market maker even publicly stated that they hold this token.

The token that has sparked heated discussions is Fartcoin.

The birth of Fartcoin originated from a conversation between artificial intelligences. In an AI agent model funded by a certain venture capitalist, a casual chat about a well-known entrepreneur "liking the sound of farting" triggered a chain reaction. The AI immediately suggested: "Why don't we issue a coin called Fartcoin?" And so, Fartcoin was born on October 18, 2024.

Born to be in the spotlight

Fartcoin has attracted the attention and pursuit of many cryptocurrency enthusiasts since its launch.

On December 13, 2024, a tweet mocking Fartcoin quickly spread on social media. What garnered widespread attention was not the content itself, but the person who retweeted it: a co-founder of a well-known venture capital firm. Although he did not explicitly state that he had purchased Fartcoin, for such a purely meme coin project, receiving a public retweet from a prominent figure in Silicon Valley's venture capital community is in itself a form of "capital recognition" and a "breakout signal."

More substantial signals come from the on-chain fund movements. When Fartcoin was launched not long ago and its market value was still less than 100 million USD, community members tracked on-chain addresses and discovered behavior trajectories highly similar to those of a certain veteran hedge fund—multiple large purchases, active interactions, and early layouts.

This hedge fund, established in 2018, was initiated by a group of veterans from the cryptocurrency field and is known for focusing on narrative-driven speculative assets. Its founder frequently expressed interest in the AI meme sector on social media platforms at the end of 2024, and even on December 13, he retweeted a post asking, "Does the fund hold $30 million in Fartcoin?" Although there was no direct response, it was widely interpreted by the community as a "de facto entry."

At the same time, multiple on-chain data cross-verifications show that several strategy pool addresses are very close to this fund, and frequent buying, locking, and liquidity allocation operations have been carried out in the early stages of Fartcoin.

In addition, one of the largest market makers in the crypto market has also appeared early in the front row holdings of Fartcoin. According to on-chain data, this market maker holds 1.56% of the total supply of Fartcoin, ranking fourth. In the asset allocation of its main address, Fartcoin ranks among the top five, even surpassing some mainstream assets.

Multiple accounts that are highly related to the main address behavior of this market maker were also active synchronously during the early launch of Fartcoin—from building positions, market making, to arbitrage, all seamlessly executed.

It is worth mentioning that in early 2025, the founder of the market maker explained the hedging logic of Fartcoin's over-the-counter trading in an interview, and for the first time admitted that he personally also holds Fartcoin, jokingly stating: "I'm just still in a trapped state."

With such market support, it's no wonder that the rise of Fartcoin is so striking and strong, completely not following the trend of the overall market.

According to data statistics from a top trader, in the first quarter of 2025, most mainstream assets have experienced significant corrections: ETH has fallen over 46% since the beginning of the year, SOL has dropped 24%, and sub-sectors like AI, L1, DeFi, and Gaming are also in deep red, quite severe. Amid this bloodbath, Fartcoin is the only green in the entire chart, with a rise of 14.84% in the first quarter. Against the backdrop of numerous assets suffering, Fartcoin stands out remarkably.

Not only did it rise against the trend during the downturn, but after the market improved in May, Fartcoin's increase still led mainstream assets, rising over 50%, far exceeding Bitcoin's 23% during the same period.

Wall Street Avoids "Fart"

The popularity of Fartcoin has not stopped within the encryption circle. What truly makes it a phenomenon is not just the counter-trend rise in its price, but the widespread discussion it has sparked on Wall Street.

"We are currently in the Fartcoin phase of the market cycle." This statement comes from a billionaire who accurately predicted and shorted a large financial institution, the founder of a well-known hedge fund. In a letter to investors in the fourth quarter of 2024, he used a whole paragraph to analyze the rise of Fartcoin, calling it "a product of pure speculative sentiment" and ranking it alongside Pets.com and Dogecoin as a typical representative of financial bubble phenomena.

It is worth mentioning that this investor is a member of a Democratic Party and has established short positions on two leveraged ETFs related to the largest holders of Bitcoin.

In his view, the name Fartcoin itself is a meme coin full of ironic meaning, having no intrinsic value, no practical application, and lacking any substitutability. He even said that rather than investing in Fartcoin, he would prefer to buy an abstract painting by Jackson Pollock, at least that painting "is something that people would still want to hang on the wall."

But it is precisely because he strongly opposed it in the letter that it becomes more interesting. Because when a financial veteran known for "rationality" and "value" starts to give a lengthy commentary on a meme coin, you know this is not an ordinary shitcoin.

A researcher at an asset management company expressed himself more directly. In a report titled "The Fartcoin Phase of the Market," he wrote: "I disagree with the statement that 'Fartcoin is useless.' Its purpose is to annoy us financial people who think we are engaged in serious work." The text is filled with anxiety about the market's irrationality. He referred to this phase as "Crypto-flatulent economics"( farting-style encryption economics), and pointed out that Fartcoin is not a failure; it precisely hits the market's three new logics—nihilism, attention economy, and sheer stupidity.

In his eyes, the core of Fartcoin's success is not technology, but its ability to spread. It can spark discussions, create emotions, and force everyone who takes the market seriously to respond to it. Even if you just curse it, you have already fallen into its trap. "Fartcoin is a product of AI precisely manipulating human brain circuits. If you think it resembles a financial experiment designed by malicious artificial intelligence, it's because it is one."

If the first two billionaires were still somewhat angry and restrained, the attitude of another billionaire was much more relaxed. This co-founder of a capital management company, a rational representative of traditional finance, is known for his calmness and factor modeling, but when faced with Fartcoin, he suddenly let go of that "rational person assumption." He wrote on social media: "Ironically, Fartcoin is the only thing I have no doubts about." In the context of that post, this was a gentle mockery of the absurdity of the entire market.

In this jab, Fartcoin does not masquerade as having "fundamentals" like other assets. It never claims to be some kind of innovative infrastructure, nor does it peddle any technical narrative, but rather stands there nakedly, admitting that it is merely an "emotional product." On the very day he said this, Fartcoin took off once again, with its price surging rapidly.

What is even more intriguing is that this investor said this a few months later: "Fartcoin's performance today compared to the past month, I have to say, I might need to distance myself further from what Gene Fama taught me." ( Gene Fama is the founder of the "Efficient Market Hypothesis" and also the academic mentor of this investor ).

Does Fartcoin also have enterprises similar to MicroStrategy?

The coin called "Fart" not only firmly stands above a market capitalization of one billion but surprisingly also has its own MicroStrategy-like enterprise—FartStrategy, just like Bitcoin.

Yes, when even the "meme" can replicate the model of a certain well-known company of "buy coin, then buy coin, and use holdings to support market value", this absurd drama has truly completed the last piece of the puzzle.

A columnist from a well-known financial media outlet did not miss this spectacle. In his 2025 column "Crypto Perpetual Motion Machines", he dedicated a section to analyze FartStrategy, calling it "the pinnacle of financial nihilism art". The article begins with: "If you can package and sell air, then why can't it be Fartcoin?"

The operational logic of FartStrategy is very simple, and can even be described as blatantly obvious: it is a DAO created specifically for purchasing Fartcoin, and its mission statement is, "Hot air rises, and we will ride this wave to create value for Fartcoin and $FSTR(FartStrategy token holders )."

Doesn't it sound a bit like—"We don't produce content, we just transport memes"?

It has no profit model, no application landing, and no stable mechanism. It is just a transparent joke, dressed in the guise of a smart contract, packaging "we intend to continuously buy Fartcoin" as a form of "financial strategy" under the name of community voting. Even the official copy states bluntly: "FartStrategy is a comedic absurd example, holding it should not expect to gain any economic benefits."

The columnist likened it to a mirror derivative of a certain company—the latter continuously raises funds to buy Bitcoin, inflating the company's valuation; while the former relies on the interaction between memes and DAOs to create self-pressurized hot air, forming a "Fartcoin Flywheel", a financial perpetual motion machine driven entirely by sentiment. He described it as "a leverage container with hot air as its asset"; when its market value exceeds the actual total value of the Fartcoin held, it sells $FSTR to buy more Fartcoin, completing the meme pixel-level closed loop.

Fartcoin comes from absurdity and stands firm in chaos.

According to data from a certain data analysis platform, from January 3, 2025, to May 9, 2025, the chip structure of Fartcoin is gradually shifting from early large holders to a more dispersed distribution among retail investors.

Especially from January to May of this year, the growth rate of addresses holding less than 1000 dollars began to rise. At the same time, Fartcoin has also become one of the most active coins in terms of trading volume and liquidity in the Alpha zone of a certain trading platform.

From the initial institutional manipulation to the current distribution of chips. All seemingly rational financial narratives ultimately reveal their true nature in the toilet humor of Fartcoin.

Fartcoin almost fits all of our stereotypes of a meme coin: a funny name, no practical value, and it rose to fame solely through linguistic effects and social driving, even causing traditional Wall Street investors to feel defensive.

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