Less than a month after the story of Peanut the squirrel and Fred the raccoon broke headlines, Mark Longo, the owner of the two pets whose tragic deaths caused a public outcry and spurred a movement, has launched his own token.
Longo spoke in a Twitter video about how he came to process the story of Peanut and Fred and has decided to launch a new token on Solana called Justice for Pnut and Fred (JUSTICE) to honor the memory of his pets.
“The government’s not gonna get away with this,” Longo said. “Justice will be served, for not only Fred and Peanut […] We will show the world that it’s not okay to overstep boundaries.”
He’s also accused the crypto community of profiting from his personal trauma.
“The crypto world has taken my tragedy and has profited every which way possible,” Longo asserted, describing the ordeal as “one of the most devastating things” in his life.
“The fact that people wanna make money off this is nothing short of despicable,” he claimed.
After decrying how the crypto community allegedly profited off of the incident, Longo went on to announce that he’s launching the new token.
“This is the only coin I will be affiliated with forever,” Longo said. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
PNUT community members have pushed back, pointing to approximately $50,000 in donations made to Longo, which they claim he immediately sold.
At the time of writing, JUSTICE has over $53.8 million in market cap with over 14,000 holders, according to data from Solscan, which was minted using the DeFi meme coin platform, Pump.fun.
Where the story began
Peanut the squirrel (stylized as P’Nut) and Fred the raccoon lived with Mark Longo at his animal sanctuary in Pine City, New York. P’Nut had become an internet sensation with over 500,000 followers on social media platforms.
New York State environmental officers raided Longo’s home on October 30, citing laws against keeping wildlife as pets. Both animals were euthanized on November 1 after P’Nut allegedly bit someone during the seizure.
The incident sparked widespread outrage and became politically charged in the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election.
Days after the story became viral, Vice President-elect JD Vance said at a rally in Sanford, North Carolina, that Trump was “fired up” about the euthanization, criticizing what they deemed as “government overreach.”
Elon Musk, who supported Trump during the electoral campaign, described the situation as “messed up” before going on with a flurry of tweets about P’Nut. This prompted crypto Twitter degens to pump up and hype the Solana-based meme coin created based on it, trailing Musk’s commentaries and associating it with PNUT.
Lawsuits and meme coins
The case behind PNUT isn’t the first time that a meme coin has resulted in actual lawsuits or threats.
On November 21, Philip Banks, the artist behind the viral “Chill Guy” meme, said he’s pursuing legal action against meme coins using his art, stating that he’d be “issuing takedowns on for-profit-related things.”
Banks’ artwork was used across various meme coins, particularly with another Solana-based token, CHILLGUY, whose market cap swelled from $13 million on November 19 to over $517 million by November 22, according to data from CoinGecko.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
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https://decrypt.co/293548/peanut-pet-owner-launches-new-token-threatens-lawsuit-against-community
