From Absurdity to Phenomenon: The Rise of Fartcoin

Against the backdrop of an overall sluggish cryptocurrency market in the first quarter of this year, a cryptocurrency with an absurd name and no practical application scenarios has become one of the few mainstream coins to rise against the trend, even sparking discussions on Wall Street and leaving many traditional investors puzzled.

This cryptocurrency called Fartcoin originated from a conversation between artificial intelligences. In an AI agent model, a casual chat about Musk's liking for fart sounds triggered a chain reaction, ultimately leading to the birth of Fartcoin on October 18, 2024.

High-profile appearance

Fartcoin attracted a lot of attention in the cryptocurrency community as soon as it was launched. On December 13, 2024, a mocking tweet about Fartcoin quickly spread on social media. What made this tweet garner widespread attention was not its content, but the identity of the person who retweeted it: a co-founder of a well-known venture capital firm. Although he did not explicitly state that he bought Fartcoin, having such a heavyweight figure publicly retweet a purely meme project itself serves as a signal of recognition.

Another more substantive signal comes from the on-chain capital movements. Shortly after Fartcoin was launched, when its market value was still below $100 million, community members tracked on-chain addresses and discovered behaviors that were highly similar to those of a seasoned hedge fund—multiple large purchases, active interactions, and early positioning. This fund is known for focusing on narrative-driven speculative assets, and its founder frequently expressed interest in the AI meme sector on social media platforms by the end of 2024.

At the same time, cross-validation of data on multiple chains shows that several strategy pool addresses are very close to this fund, which has frequently conducted buying, locking, and liquidity allocation operations in the early stages of Fartcoin.

In addition, one of the largest market makers in the cryptocurrency market has also shown up early in the front row holdings of Fartcoin. According to on-chain data, this market maker holds 1.56% of the total supply of Fartcoin, ranking fourth. In the asset allocation of its main address, Fartcoin ranks among the top five, even surpassing some mainstream assets.

Counter-trend rise

With the support of these institutions, Fartcoin's price increase is exceptionally noticeable and strong, completely not following the market trend.

According to data statistics from a top trader, in the first quarter of 2025, most mainstream assets experienced significant pullbacks: ETH has dropped over 46% year-to-date, SOL down 24%, and sectors such as AI, L1, DeFi, and Gaming are all in deep red. In this sea of blood, Fartcoin is the only green in the entire chart, with a growth rate of 14.84% in the first quarter.

Not only did it rise during the downtrend, but after the market improved in May, Fartcoin's increase still led mainstream assets, rising over 50%, far surpassing Bitcoin's 23% during the same period.

Spark Controversy on Wall Street

The popularity of Fartcoin has not stopped within the cryptocurrency circle. What truly makes it a phenomenon is the discussions it has sparked on Wall Street.

In a letter to investors in the fourth quarter of 2024, the founder of a well-known hedge fund spent an entire paragraph analyzing the rise of Fartcoin, calling it "a product of pure speculative sentiment," and placing it alongside Pets.com and Dogecoin as a typical representative of financial bubbles.

Another researcher from an asset management company pointed out in a report titled "The Fartcoin Phase of the Market" that Fartcoin is not a failure, but rather perfectly hits the three new logics of the market—nihilism, attention economy, and sheer stupidity. In his view, the core of Fartcoin's success is not technology, but its ability to spread. It can spark discussions, create emotions, and force everyone who takes the market seriously to respond to it.

There is also a rational representative of traditional finance who stated on social media: "Ironically, Fartcoin is the only thing I have no doubts about." He believes that Fartcoin does not disguise itself as having "fundamentals" like other assets, but rather stands there bare, admitting that it is just an "emotional product."

Imitating MicroStrategy's FartStrategy

In the ecosystem of Fartcoin, a FartStrategy mimicking MicroStrategy has even emerged. This is a DAO specifically created for the purchase of Fartcoin, and its mission statement is "Hot air rises, and we will ride the wave of this hot air to create value for Fartcoin and $FSTR (the token of FartStrategy) holders."

FartStrategy has no profit model, no application landing, and no stable mechanism. It is just a transparent joke, dressed in the guise of a smart contract, packaging "we intend to continuously buy Fartcoin" as a kind of "financial strategy" under the pretext of community voting.

Changes in Chip Structure

According to on-chain data, from January 3, 2025, to May 9, 2025, the chip structure of Fartcoin is gradually shifting from being concentrated among early large holders to being dispersed among retail investors. In particular, from January to May of this year, the number of addresses holding less than $1,000 has significantly increased. Meanwhile, Fartcoin has also become one of the most actively traded coins in terms of trading volume and liquidity on a certain trading platform.

From the initial institutional dominance to the current dispersion of chips, the development trajectory of Fartcoin is quite dramatic. It almost matches all our stereotypes of meme coins: a funny name, no practical value, relying entirely on linguistic effects and social drives to gain popularity, even making traditional Wall Street investors uncomfortable. However, it is precisely this absurdity that allows Fartcoin to stand out in the cryptocurrency market and become a unique phenomenon.