Crypto trader makes $8.3 million in 20 minutes

Cryptocurrencies have brought about one of the biggest paradigm shifts in finance in recent memory. While they carry the potential to turn the tide in favor of decentralization and transparency, practical use cases are still in their infancy.

On the other hand, digital assets have seen widespread adoption in the form of speculative investments. Once the domain of the particularly internet-savvy, they are now widely available and enjoy strong mainstream appeal.

As this nascent industry matures, the rough edges are being smoothed out. While cryptocurrencies are still very volatile, they’ve slowly begun to stabilize — whether through a stronger correlation with the performance of traditional assets, the advent of stablecoins, or institutional involvement.

The big payouts from trades that net savvy investors life-altering wealth are a rarer sight nowadays — but they do still occur, although primarily in the domain of meme coins. In one such instance, a wily trader made a $8.36 million profit in the span of just 20 minutes on December 17 — let’s take a closer look at exactly what happened.

This PENGU trade was perfectly timed — but risky

Roughly two hours before the time of publication, this trader spent a grand total of 23,742 Solana (SOL), worth approximately $5.36 million at the time, to execute 8 transactions in which they purchased 239.6 million Pudgy Penguins (PENGU), according to data retrieved by Finbold from Solscan.

This PENGU stake was then sold for 60,726 SOL worth $13.72 million after a 780.62% 1-day price surge — bringing the total profit of the trade to $8.36 million. Beyond the short duration of the trade, there are a couple of interesting factors to note.

For one, someone has stepped forward to claim the trade as their own — pseudonymous X user Nakasintos, although the report has not been verified.

Secondly, a closer look at on-chain data reveals that the account in question executed as many as 500 trades within a single hour — suggesting that an automated system is at play no matter who is behind it.

Ultimately, although impressive, this trade required a staggering amount of risk appetite — while this can serve as an interesting example of the profit potential seen with meme coins, risking millions of dollars on assets with questionable underlying value is an approach most cryptocurrency investors simply aren’t cut out for.

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