Memecoin Degens raises millions for rare cancer research after father's plea

Pump.Fun meme coin soared from zero to $80 million in market capitalization on Thursday after a father's appeal for donations to research into his daughter's rare brain cancer attracted a swarm of crypto traders. .

The price of the MIRA token has fallen 80% from Thursday's peak and was trading for just over 1 cent as of Friday. But while late buyers were left at a loss, the effort raised more than $1 million for the cause.

Shiki Chen, founder of the Runway Corporate Financial Planning application, said in an X post on Thursday that her daughter Mila was diagnosed with a type of brain tumor in September, and that the rarity of the disease has led to research and funding being cut short. There's a shortage,” he said. .

His GoFundMe page had raised 80% of its $300,000 goal as of Thursday, with all proceeds going directly to research efforts at the University of Colorado's Hankinson Institute.

Chen also posted his Ethereum wallet on the X thread in response to a user's request, and added Solana and Bitcoin addresses when the user asked for more options.

Then Pump.fun happened.

The Pump.fun platform allows anyone to issue tokens with a capital of less than $2, and then choose the number of tokens, the theme, and the meme image that goes with it. Once the token reaches a market capitalization of $69,000, a portion of the liquidity will be deposited and burned at Solana-based exchange Raydium.

Pump.fun users created the MIRA token, which was attached to a photo of Chen and his daughter, with no apparent purpose other than to be a token that could be traded like any other meme coin. According to user profiles, MIRA was just one of several tokens created that day, with no other tokens topping the $6,000 market cap.

But things started to move from there. X user @Waddles_eth bought 50% of the supply and sent it all to Chen. Chen then boosted Meme Coin on his X account.

This ensured the token's virality, with the price rising from fractions of a penny to a peak of 8 cents early Thursday. The value of Chen's token holdings soared from $400,000 to more than $18 million. MIRA became widely traded and attracted up to $7 million in liquidity (in terms of both Solana's SOL and meme coins).

Trading volume exceeded $85 million on more than 130,000 transactions, making it the most popular small-cap stock in the past 24 hours.

As prices skyrocketed, Chen wrote to X: “I've been using the internet for 30 years and I've seen some terrible things, but today is the craziest day of my life.” “I will permanently liquidate $1,000 worth of $MIRA every 10 minutes. If I change this schedule, I promise to announce it 24 hours in advance.”

“If you want it to be $0, go for it. We were aiming to raise $200,000, but we'll end up raising at least $1 million for rare disease research,” he wrote. .

Community reaction to the event was overwhelmingly positive, with several users pointing out how meme coins like this can contribute to positive outcomes in the world.

Meme coins are primarily based on virality, attention, and hype. These are considered unserious among professional investors, but backed by larger venture capital firms, which are perceived as enriching already wealthy investors at the expense of small retail traders. It has seen significant demand and preference over the past year compared to other crypto tokens.

MIRA helped change the conversation.

“I don't touch meme coins because I think they're stupid and have no future. But if you want to advocate for them, now you know where to start,” said X user @JaEsf. Ta. “This is beautiful and it's so crazy that you can do that with cryptocurrencies. EVM, Solana, or any chain. This is why crypto exists! It simplifies the movement of assets,” said another X user. @mbaril010 said.

Meanwhile, @waddles_eth, the user who initially sent half of the token supply to Chen, said the overall results met expectations.

“When we saw the story about Mila and her illness, we thought it would be a good idea to purchase supplies and send them to you in the hope that the SOL community can help a good cause this Christmas,” they wrote. This is mentioned in the post by X, which is currently a hot topic. . “We are really pleased with the outcome and hope this money will help find a cure for both Mila and others with her condition.”

Forever encryption may finally become a reality in the new year.

Correction (December 27, 09:06 UTC): Corrected Chen's company name to Runway. A previous version of this story was called “Runaway.”