How the memecoin game is played

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Memecoins are having a moment, but who's making money off them? On today's show, how a dearly beloved internet squirrel found an afterlife as a cryptocurrency and how others, including President Trump, are trying to capitalize on online fame.

Related episodes:
Is government crypto a good idea? (Apple / Spotify)
WTF is a bitcoin ETF? (Apple / Spotify)
Who let the Doge(coin) out?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:02.0	This is the indicator from Planet Money.
0:13.6	I'm Whalen Wong.
0:15.1	And I'm here today with occasional NPR reporter and producer Nick Nevis, who has a story
0:20.2	about a squirrel and a meme coin.
0:22.5	Hi, Waylon.
0:23.5	Hi.
0:24.3	Okay, so you may remember Peanut the Squirrel.
0:27.9	He was an Instagram famous squirrel owned by this guy Mark Longo, and Mark would dress him up in little cowboy hats and they would eat waffles together.
0:36.8	It was very cute.
0:38.7	Were the waffles also small? Actually, the waffles were normal size. But the cowboy hats were small. The cowboy hats were small.
0:43.8	The cowboy hats were just peanuts. Yes. But Mark didn't have a license to take care of wild animals.
0:49.9	And late last year, New York state agents raided his house and confiscated peanut.
0:56.2	And in the process, it bit one of the officers.
0:59.3	And to test it for rabies, the officers killed Peanut the Squirrel.
1:03.7	I do remember this now.
1:05.5	A lot of people were talking about this, including J.D. Vams.
1:08.5	So I know Don's fired up about Peanut the Squirrel.
1:11.1	And Elon Musk talked about it on Joe Rogan show.
1:13.5	He's got there and vote for Peanut, man. If not enough. Yeah. And at the same time,
1:19.4	someone made a cryptocurrency named after Peanut the Squirrel, and it exploded in value in just a few
1:26.2	weeks.
	...

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