A parody X account claiming to be a former trader has donated memecoins inspired by him to charity after the gifted tokens soared to a peak value of nearly $1 million.
The account, which goes by Richard E. Ptardio, said it received 700 million Richard Ptardio (PTARDIO) tokens on Dec. 17, which were created through the Solana token creator Pump.fun, with a screenshot showing the holdings were worth $53,250 at the time.
Hours later, Ptardio shared another screenshot showing his PTARDIO holdings had gained 1,765% to be worth nearly $1 million.
Ptardio then posted on X that the token’s creator “did so entirely without my knowledge or consent,” and that he wanted to distance himself from the project.
“I shall be selling my position and donating the entire proceeds to Save the Children. A far better use of the funds,” he said. The token's value had dropped, but Ptardio shared that he had donated 313.4 Solana (SOL) worth $69,000 to the charity, which funds education, health and other programs for children worldwide.
It’s not uncommon for memecoin creators to send a portion of the token supply to the person who inspired them.
The Ptardio account appears as an older man who says he worked for 35 years on trading desks in London, Hong Kong and New York before starting to comment on the “weird and wonderful world” of crypto on X in mid-September.
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Ptardio has recently promoted memecoin investing, saying that its “weirdness” drives real action while claiming that the “market rewards the bold, not the logical.”
Created only 20 hours earlier, PTARDIO rocketed to a peak market cap of about $4.75 million before falling to $258,000, GeckoTerminal data shows.
The total memecoin market cap is currently $128.2 billion, led by Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIBA) at $57.9 billion and $15.4 billion, respectively, according to CoinGecko.
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