An unexpected encryption coin has become the mainstream token that rose against the trend in the first quarter of this year.

In the first quarter of this year, a cryptocurrency with an absurd name that seems to have no practical use became one of the few mainstream tokens to rise against the trend. This not only attracted attention within the cryptocurrency circle but also sparked widespread discussion on Wall Street, leaving many traditional investors feeling confused.

The actions of some well-known figures have further fueled speculation in the market. A co-founder of a venture capital giant retweeted content related to the coin on social media, a certain hedge fund is suspected of making a large purchase early on, and a top market maker even included it in their core asset allocation, with the company's founder publicly admitting to holding this token.

The sensational token is Fartcoin.

The birth of Fartcoin originated from a conversation between artificial intelligences. In an AI agent model, a casual chat about a certain well-known entrepreneur's fondness for fart sounds triggered a chain reaction. The AI immediately suggested: "How about we issue a coin called Fartcoin?" And so, Fartcoin was born on October 18, 2024.

Born to be in the spotlight

Fartcoin attracted the attention of many followers in the cryptocurrency community as soon as it was launched, with many showing strong interest and making investments.

On December 13, 2024, a tweet mocking Fartcoin rapidly spread across social media. What drew widespread attention to this tweet was not its content, but rather the identity of the person sharing it: a co-founder of a prominent venture capital firm. Although he did not explicitly state that he purchased Fartcoin, the public retweet from such a symbolic figure in Silicon Valley venture capital for a purely internet meme project itself serves as a recognition and a signal of breaking into the mainstream.

Another more substantive signal comes from the on-chain funding movements. Shortly after Fartcoin was launched, with a market cap of less than 100 million USD, community members tracked on-chain addresses and discovered operations highly similar to the behavioral patterns of a seasoned hedge fund—multiple large purchases, frequent interactions, and early positioning.

This hedge fund was established in 2018 and is known for being an all-weather strategy fund initiated by a group of seasoned individuals in the cryptocurrency field, focusing on narrative-driven assets. Its founders have expressed interest in AI-related trending projects multiple times on social media platforms by the end of 2024, and even on December 13th, they shared a tweet about whether the fund holds a large amount of Fartcoin. Although there was no direct response, this action has been widely interpreted by the community as a tacit entry.

At the same time, cross-verification of multiple on-chain data shows that several strategy pool addresses operate very similarly to this fund, frequently engaging in buying, locking, and liquidity allocation operations during the early stages of Fartcoin.

In addition, there are more active participants emerging - one of the largest market makers in the encryption market. According to on-chain data, this market maker holds 1.56% of the total supply of Fartcoin, making it the fourth largest holder. In the asset allocation of its main address, Fartcoin even ranks higher than some mainstream assets, placing in the top five.

Multiple accounts highly correlated with the main address behavior of the market maker also showed active performance during the early stage of Fartcoin's launch—from building positions, market making, to arbitrage trading, a series of operations flowed smoothly.

It is worth mentioning that in early 2025, the founder of this market maker explained the hedging logic of Fartcoin's over-the-counter trading during an interview, and for the first time admitted that he personally also holds Fartcoin, jokingly stating that he is currently in a state of loss.

In such a market environment, the rise of Fartcoin is particularly eye-catching and strong, completely disconnected from the overall market trend.

According to data from a top trader, in the first quarter of 2025, most mainstream assets experienced significant corrections: ETH has dropped over 46% year-to-date, SOL has fallen by 24%, and segments such as AI, L1, DeFi, and Gaming have seen even steeper declines. However, in this "red sea," Fartcoin is the only green in the entire chart, with a rise of 14.84% in the first quarter. Against the backdrop of poor performance from many assets, Fartcoin's performance stands out remarkably.

Not only did it rise against the trend during the downtrend, but when the market improved in May, Fartcoin's rise still led mainstream assets, increasing by more than 50%, far exceeding Bitcoin's 23% rise during the same period.

Triggering Heated Discussions on Wall Street

The influence of Fartcoin is not limited to the cryptocurrency circle. What truly makes it a phenomenon is not only its price rise against the trend but also the discussion frenzy it has sparked on Wall Street.

"We are currently in the Fartcoin phase of the market cycle." This statement comes from a billionaire who accurately predicted and shorted a large financial institution; he is the founder of a well-known hedge fund. In a letter to investors in the fourth quarter of 2024, this investment mogul used an entire paragraph to analyze the rise of Fartcoin, calling it "a product of pure speculative sentiment," and likened it to iconic companies from the dot-com bubble era as well as other well-known meme coins, viewing it as a typical example of financial bubble phenomena.

It is worth mentioning that this investor belongs to the Democratic Party and has already established short positions on two leveraged ETFs related to the largest holders of Bitcoin.

In his view, the name Fartcoin itself is a sarcastic internet hotcoin, without any intrinsic value, practical application, or substitutability. He even stated that rather than investing in Fartcoin, he would prefer to buy a piece from a famous abstract artist, at least that painting "is still something people would want to hang on the wall."

But it is precisely because he strongly opposed it in the letter that this project became even more eye-catching. Because when a veteran in the financial world, known for "rationality" and "value," starts to make lengthy comments on a hot internet coin, you know this is no ordinary project.

Another researcher from an asset management company expressed it more bluntly. In a report titled "The Fartcoin Phase of the Market," he wrote: "I do not agree with the statement that 'Fartcoin has no use.' Its purpose is to annoy us financial professionals who think we are engaged in serious work." The words are filled with concerns about the irrationality of the market. He referred to this phase as "fart-style encryption economics" and pointed out that Fartcoin is not a failure; it precisely hits the three new logics of the market—nihilism, attention economy, and bare stupidity.

In his eyes, the core of Fartcoin's success lies not in technology, but in its ability to spread. It can ignite discussions, provoke emotions, and force everyone who takes the market seriously to respond to it. Even if you are just criticizing it, you have already fallen into its trap. "Fartcoin is a product of AI precisely manipulating human thought, and if you think it resembles a malicious AI-designed financial experiment, it’s because it was originally designed to be that way."

If the first two billionaires still carried some anger and restraint, the attitude of another billionaire seemed much more relaxed. This co-founder of a capital management company, a representative figure of rationality in traditional finance, is known for his calmness and model analysis, but when faced with Fartcoin, he suddenly dropped that "rational person hypothesis." He wrote on social media: "Ironically, Fartcoin is the only thing I don't doubt." In the context of that post at the time, this was a mild mockery of the absurdity of the entire market.

In this jab, Fartcoin does not disguise itself as an "asset with fundamentals" like other assets do. It never claims to be some kind of innovative infrastructure, nor does it peddle any technological narratives, but instead it stands there naked, admitting that it is merely an "emotional product." On the very day he made these remarks, Fartcoin skyrocketed again, with a rapid rise.

What is even more intriguing is that this investment mogul said this a few months later: "Seeing the performance of Fartcoin today compared to the past month, I have to say, I might need to distance myself further from the theories taught by my mentor." (His mentor is the founder of the "Efficient Market Hypothesis")

Does Fartcoin also have its own "micro strategy"?

The coin named "Fart" not only maintains a market value above one billion dollars, but also, like Bitcoin, has its own "microstrategy"—FartStrategy.

Yes, when even the internet meme can replicate the model of a well-known company that goes "buy coins, then buy coins, use holdings to support market value," this absurd drama has truly completed the final piece of the puzzle.

A renowned financial columnist did not miss this spectacular show. This writer is a columnist for a large media outlet, a former practitioner of Wall Street investment banking, and is hailed as one of the most popular financial commentators on Wall Street. His column is regarded as a "must-read" every day, with readers ranging from regulatory officials to hedge fund managers within the entire Wall Street elite circle.

In his 2025 column "The Encryption Perpetuum Mobile", he dedicated a section to analyze FartStrategy, referring to it as "the pinnacle of financial nihilism art." The article starts with: "If you can package and sell air, why can't it be Fartcoin?"

The operational logic of FartStrategy is very simple, even shamelessly straightforward: it is a decentralized autonomous organization created specifically for the purchase of Fartcoin, and its mission statement is, "Hot air rises, and we will ride this wave to create value for Fartcoin and $FSTR (the token of FartStrategy) holders."

It has no profit model, no application implementation, and no stability mechanism. It is just a transparent joke, dressed in the guise of smart contracts, packaging "we intend to continue buying Fartcoin" as a kind of "financial strategy" under the name of community voting. Even the official copy bluntly states: "FartStrategy is a comedic absurd example, and holding it should not be expected to yield any economic benefits."

The columnist compared it to the mirror derivative of a well-known company—the latter continuously finances to buy Bitcoin, raising the company's valuation; while the former relies on the interaction of online hotspots and decentralized autonomous organizations to self-pressurize the hot air, forming a "Fartcoin flywheel," a financial perpetual motion machine driven continuously by emotions. He described it as "a leveraged container with hot air as its asset," which sells $FSTR to buy more Fartcoin when its market value exceeds the actual total value of the held Fartcoin, completing a meme-level closed loop.

Fartcoin was born from absurdity and stands firm in chaos.

According to data from the on-chain data analysis platform, from January 3, 2025, to May 9, 2025, the chip structure of Fartcoin is gradually shifting from concentration among early large holders to dispersion among retail investors. In particular, from January to May of this year, the growth rate of addresses holding small amounts of tokens (less than $1,000) has begun to accelerate. Meanwhile, Fartcoin has also become one of the most actively traded coins in terms of trading volume and liquidity in a special area of a certain trading platform.

From the initial institutional dominance to the current scattered chips. All seemingly rational financial narratives ultimately reveal their essence in the absurd humor of Fartcoin.

Fartcoin almost fits all our stereotypes of internet meme coins: a funny name, no real value, entirely driven by linguistic effects and social media, even making Wall Street.