Monkey Pox, a new token that more than doubled in value on Wednesday, August 5, has since erased all its gains amid concerns over market manipulation.
Sharp Decline in Value
Monkey Pox dropped to $0.0355, down 68% from its weekly high. This plunge reduced its market cap from over $92 million to just above $54 million.
Factors Behind the Decline
The sharp decline is attributed to increasing fears of market manipulation, a common issue in the meme coin space. Data from DEX Screener shows that Monkey Pox has over 25,000 holders. Further data from RugCheck shows that the largest holder controls 660 million tokens, or 66% of the total supply. The top holders own 72% of all POX tokens in circulation. Notably, the mutable metadata can be altered by the owner at will, a risky situation since the creator is anonymous.
Examples of Past Manipulations
In May, Nigerian singer Davido promoted the $DAVIDO token, which later collapsed. The creator, Sahil Arora, is estimated to have profited significantly as the token initially surged, reportedly making over $30 million from similar celebrity-themed tokens. Meme coin creators are benefiting from the ease of creating tokens on platforms like Pump.fun and SunPump. SunPump has generated over $57 million in fees in less than a month since its launch, highlighting the popularity of these tokens. Solana’s Pump.fun, used to create the Monkey Pox token, has generated over $219 million in fees in nine months since its launch, supporting the creation of new tokens to exploit viral events.
The Monkey Pox token was likely launched to capitalize on the fear surrounding Mpox, which the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency in August. The disease is spreading in several countries, primarily in Africa, evoking memories of COVID-19, which claimed millions of lives.
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