coindesk.com
The Solana-based memecoin White Whale fell as much as 60% on Monday after its largest private holder sold most of their position, data shows, triggering a wave of market selling and fresh accusations of a "rug pull" on X.
On-chain data show the holder unloaded roughly $1.3 million worth of WHITEWHALE tokens, pushing the price sharply lower as liquidity thinned.
The move briefly erased a large chunk of the token’s market value before prices slightly recovered, with a token pair liquidity of just above $900,000 as of European morning hours.
This episode highlights the risks tied to smaller memecoins, which are highly illiquid and lack the market depth needed to absorb large orders. Their values are therefore extremely vulnerable to the buy/sell decisions of big holders, who tend to move quickly, wreaking havoc on prices.
Wallet 6kasXu, an early $WhiteWhale buyer, received tokens from deployer address 'CZFDnH,' which bought 45 million after the CTO. Both wallets sold about $1.3 million worth in the past hour chart.
White Whale’s deployers addressed the selloff in a statement on X, calling it a “liquidity event” rather than a treasury-driven action. The account said the project did not participate in the selling, though it confirmed it carried out some buybacks during the decline.
The statement framed the exit as a distribution change, arguing that a single oversized position no longer hangs over the market and that supply is now spread across a broader set of holders.
Statement
— The White Whale (@TheWhiteWhaleV2) January 19, 2026
Earlier today, our largest private holder exited the majority of their position. That sale triggered a cascade of market selling and a sharp move on the chart.
Let’s be clear about what did and did not change.
The mission hasn’t changed.
The underlying facts haven’t… pic.twitter.com/eZVxue74JQ
By early Tuesday, WHITEWHALE had clawed back some losses, trading around $0.040 with a market cap near $40 million. About $12 million in 24-hour volume suggested speculative interest remained high despite the swing.
White Whale launched about three months ago on Pump.fun and is themed around the online persona @TheWhiteWhaleV2, a crypto trader whose account is wildly popular on X.