Lucky Meme Coin Trader Turns $140 Into $450,000 in 24 Hours

A buyer of a new Solana meme coin called Pochita turned $140 into $450,000 in less than 24 hours—and they still haven’t sold the bulk of the coins.

The coin emerged (and surged) after the owner of the meme-famous dog that originally inspired Solana’s BONK coin adopted a new furry friend called Pochita on Wednesday. The news prompted various crypto degens to create a plethora of meme coins inspired by the pup—and unlike in the so-called Neiro civil war, one token quickly emerged as the winner.

One unidentified trader, using a wallet starting with “AjwF,” bought 1 SOL ($140 at the time) worth of the token just over a minute after it was launched on Pump.fun. They were the 19th person to purchase over 0.05 SOL ($7) worth of this particular Pochita coin, making a relatively big bet on the nascent token.

Interestingly, the trader had already bought and sold two previous Pochita tokens just seconds before identifying the big winner. The trader continued buying and selling coins, including more Pochita tokens, but for some reason held onto this token amid the initial frenzy.

Nearly 24 hours later, the held Pochita token has climbed to a market cap of $22 million, while the discarded tokens failed to make it off the ground. As a result, the initial 1 SOL purchase is now worth over $450,000, according to DEX Screener, after AjwF sold just $450 worth in the hours since the initial buy. This makes the trader the largest holder of Pochita with 2.18% of the supply.

Blockchain analytics visualization company Bubblemaps told Decrypt that there are no immediately noticeable on-chain links between early buyers, and that most have already sold their bags amid the rise. This is often a sign that the token is not controlled by insiders, although the firm warned it cannot be 100% sure at this stage.

That said, with 2.18% of the supply, the big Pochita winner could significantly drop the price if they chose to sell their tokens. It is worth noting, however, that AjwF would not receive the full market value for their tokens if they decided to sell in one go. As a result of holding a large portion of the total tokens, a large amount of slippage would occur.

This may explain why the trader has started to split their funds into different wallets—the same behavior that the “Moo Deng millionaire” displayed. Now storing funds in five separate wallets, the lucky trader is spreading funds thin as they eye up the perfect opportunity to sell.

Pochita is now down 45% from its all-time high of $35 million reached just over eight hours ago. Did AjwF miss their opportunity for the perfect cash-out? This is all too common of a meme coin tragedy. As billionaire investor Mark Cuban said in an interview this week with Decrypt’s sister company Rug Radio, meme coin trading is a high-stakes game of timing.

Perhaps most notoriously, the Dogecoin millionaire became a multi-millionaire with DOGE, but regrettably never sold. More recently, a trader turned $800 into $7.5 million with Moo Deng. According to blockchain data, they still haven’t sold with the token falling 30% from its all-time high.

Edited by Andrew Hayward