Moo Deng falls more than 22% after market debut with ‘meteoric rise’

Moo Deng, the Solana-based meme coin inspired by a viral Thai pygmy hippo, has fallen by 22% in the last 24 hours of trading and nearly 45% in the past week, a far cry from its previous record-high prices.

According to data from crypto.news, on Oct. 16 MOODENG has fallen more than 22% in the past 24 hours of trading. At the time of writing, the meme coin was trading hands at $0.0915 with a 24-hour trading volume of $96 million.

The Solana-based meme coin was still recorded making rounds on Oct. 8, soaring past 40% a day after Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin sold 10 billion Moo Deng tokens and donated over $640,000 worth of cryptocurrency to his biotech charity fund, Kanro.

Since then, the hippo-inspired coin has fallen nearly 45% in the past week.

Zeneca, Web3 Thought Leader & Founder of Zenacademy, commented on the fall of Moo Deng on an X post. He noted that a meme coin with a “meteoric rise”, such as the case with Moo Deng, tends to experience a 70-90% drawdown in the following days.

“Not saying it’s over for the moo deng now – but I def[initely] fall into the Murad camp of things and think cult coins are the future and cute new animals will always struggle (beyond an initial pump) unless the community becomes cultish too,” said Zeneca in his post, referencing Murad Mahmudov, an avid champion of meme coins.

The Moo Deng meme coin reached its all time high on Sept. 28 at $0.338 with weekly gains of over 700%. Its market cap soared to over $300 million, making it the biggest token in the Pump.fun ecosystem at that time. Since then, Moo Deng’s market cap has plummeted by 70%, standing at $90 million.

It has since fallen from its top spot amongst Pump.fun tokens, making a splash at number 5. In the overall meme token rankings by market cap, Moo Deng currently ranks at number 473.

Who is Moo Deng?

Moo Deng is a two-month old pygmy hippo at Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand. She has become an internet sensation, racking up millions of views on the Zoo’s viral TikTok videos thanks to her chubby cheeks and always-wet appearance. Moo Deng has also been the subject of countless memes that have been distributed across the internet.

In Sept. 2024, her internet fame led to a significant spike in zoo visitors, doubling daily attendance numbers, according to the BBC. Director of Khao Kheow Open Zoo, Narongwit Chodchoy, once predicted that Moo Deng would bring the zoo more than $6.13 million by the end of the year.