Lower than a month after the story of Peanut the squirrel and Fred the raccoon broke headlines, Mark Longo, the proprietor of the 2 pets whose tragic deaths precipitated a public outcry and spurred a motion, has launched his personal token.
Longo spoke in a Twitter video about how he got here to course of the story of Peanut and Fred and has determined to launch a brand new token on Solana known as Justice for Pnut and Fred (JUSTICE) to honor the reminiscence of his pets.
“The federal government’s not gonna get away with this,” Longo mentioned. “Justice might be served, for not solely Fred and Peanut […] We’ll present the world that it isn’t okay to overstep boundaries.”
He is additionally accused the crypto neighborhood of benefiting from his private trauma.
“The crypto world has taken my tragedy and has profited each which manner potential,” Longo asserted, describing the ordeal as “some of the devastating issues” in his life.
“The truth that folks wanna generate income off that is nothing wanting despicable,” he claimed.
After decrying how the crypto neighborhood allegedly profited off of the incident, Longo went on to announce that he is launching the brand new token.
“That is the one coin I might be affiliated with without end,” Longo mentioned. He didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
PNUT neighborhood members have pushed again, pointing to roughly $50,000 in donations made to Longo, which they declare he instantly bought.
On the time of writing, JUSTICE has over $53.8 million in market cap with over 14,000 holders, in accordance with knowledge from Solscan, which was minted utilizing the DeFi meme coin platform, Pump.enjoyable.
The place the story started
Peanut the squirrel (stylized as P’Nut) and Fred the raccoon lived with Mark Longo at his animal sanctuary in Pine Metropolis, New York. P’Nut had change into an web sensation with over 500,000 followers on social media platforms.
New York State environmental officers raided Longo’s dwelling on October 30, citing legal guidelines in opposition to conserving wildlife as pets. Each animals have been euthanized on November 1 after P’Nut allegedly bit somebody in the course of the seizure.
The incident sparked widespread outrage and have become politically charged within the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election.
Days after the story turned viral, Vice President-elect JD Vance mentioned at a rally in Sanford, North Carolina, that Trump was “fired up” concerning the euthanization, criticizing what they deemed as “authorities overreach.”
Elon Musk, who supported Trump in the course of the electoral marketing campaign, described the state of affairs as “tousled” earlier than happening with a flurry of tweets about P’Nut. This prompted crypto Twitter degens to pump up and hype the Solana-based meme coin created based mostly on it, trailing Musk’s commentaries and associating it with PNUT.
Lawsuits and meme cash
The case behind PNUT is not the primary time {that a} meme coin has resulted in precise lawsuits or threats.
On November 21, Philip Banks, the artist behind the viral “Chill Man” meme, mentioned he is pursuing authorized motion in opposition to meme cash utilizing his artwork, stating that he’d be “issuing takedowns on for-profit-related issues.”
Banks’ paintings was used throughout varied meme cash, significantly with one other Solana-based token, CHILLGUY, whose market cap swelled from $13 million on November 19 to over $517 million by November 22, in accordance with knowledge from CoinGecko.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
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