WallStreetBets Coin becomes #1 on CoinMarketCap… kind of

The new coin suddenly appeared at the top of CoinMarketCap’s rankings, but is WallStreetBets really coming to crypto?

The influence of Reddit’s r/wallstreetbets sub has apparently spread to the cryptocurrency space, after a new coin appeared at the top of CoinMarketCap’s rankings on Jan. 29.

Dubbed WallStreetBets (WSB), the new coin apparently gained in excess of 130% in the past 24 hours, with a daily trade volume of $100 million.

However, the new coin appears to be the latest in a series of jokes played by the CoinMarketCap team. The coin’s page on CMC features the following message:

“All UR MeMes R belong to us and Charmander-marth!!11. We seek alpha and master beta. Please note that this is a joke and no such asset exists. If you see similarly-named projects, please perform the requisite due diligence and do not ape in.”

The reference to Charmander-marth links to a YouTube video featuring Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya being interviewed by CNBC regarding his successful trading of Gamestop (GME) stocks during the short-squeeze initiated by the r/wallstreetbets sub.

The coin’s CMC page offers up a brief timeline of the Gamestop saga, describing the short-squeeze tactic and the subsequent effect it had on the Robinhood trading app, which suspended retail trading for GME and several other stocks, including AMC, Nokia and Blackberry.

Clicking the link to the coin’s whitepaper links to the Twitter page of one @MuzlM_Trader, whose tweet also drew attention to Chamath Palihapitiya’s appearance on CNBC.

The influence of the sub-reddit on the cryptocurrency space was also witnessed in the price surge initiated by Dogecoin (DOGE), which briefly broke into the market cap top 10 following a 570% increase to its spot price. DOGE’s surge was also orchestrated on Reddit.

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