As Bitcoin continuously flirts with new all-time highs seemingly every week, the entire cryptosphere has been reinvigorated by the possibility of an impending bull run. In fact, many believe we are already in the midst of the new bull cycle with the Bitcoin Fear and Greed index in the 80s for “extreme greed.” While the Web3 community should deservedly enjoy any profits made off the strong market, it’s no exaggeration that sometimes wild and overly optimistic things happen when we reach peak mania. After all, part of crypto’s allure is its proximity to internet meme culture and possibility for extreme wealth. So as sentiment turns toward the probability of another massive bull market, let’s take a look at some of the wildest occurrences driven by hype, greed, and mania of past cycles.
$300 Million for White Text on Black Background: LOOT NFT
One of the biggest breakout technologies of the 2021 crypto cycle was NFTs. High tier projects like Crypto Punks and BAYC were seen as the ultimate flex, and even adopted as profile pictures by some of the world’s biggest stars like Steph Curry. Among the plethora of successful NFT projects launched in 2021, probably the wildest one in hindsight is LOOT (for Adventurers).
Developed by Dom Hofmann, the co-founder of video-sharing platform Vine, LOOT consisted of 8,000 simple images of white text on black background. The text described random items that sounded applicable to an RPG game, including “Silver Ring of Anger,” and “Necklace of Enlightenment.” What set LOOT apart from other NFTs was the fact that the collection was intentionally created without any set backstory, so the community itself can build games or make up lore surrounding the loot. The project quickly shot to success, and at its peak buyers were paying 20 ETH (roughly $80,000 at the time) to become proud owners of words on a screen.
LOOT even spawned its own cryptocurrency called Adventure Gold ($AGLD) which at one point reached $300 million in market capitalization. While prices of both the NFT price and AGLD have crashed since 2021, LOOT does demonstrate how creativity and community-focus can become the recipe for fast virality within Web3. And a bit of hype and mania doesn’t hurt either.
Degens Attempt the Buy the U.S. Constitution: $40 Million Offer
In November 2021, Sotheby's held an auction for a rare 1787 copy of the US constitution. The auctioneers originally anticipated a sale price of around $20 million, until the crypto degens arrived. ConstitutionDAO represented a crypto-fueled, crowd-funded effort to purchase the rare artifact through a decentralized autonomous organization structure. ConstitutionDAO was launched just a week before the auction and if successful in obtaining the Constitution, would have given all contributors governance tokens to control what the group did with the artifact. Indeed the DAO did launch a token - $PEOPLE, which reached a peak market capitalization of over $300 million shortly after its initial launch period in November 2021.
Ultimately, the group was able to raise $42 million and made mainstream news headlines, but failed to win the auction as Citadel’s Ken Griffin took home the Constitution with his $43.2 million bid. Nevertheless, ConstitutionDAO proved to be a salient experiment in the intersection of traditional auctions with a DAO structure. Should it have won the auction, questions like who would actually own the Constitution legally, and how much legal claim each DAO contributor would have to that ownership, would have undoubtedly arisen and been interesting to explore.
Gen Z Quant - Livestream Rugpuller
This final crazy story occurred during this current cycle, and in fact just happened in November 2024. A Gen Z trader, capitalizing on online hype surrounding Solana meme coins, introduced a token called $QUANT on pump.fun. However, in a surprising turn of events, he live-streamed himself executing a rug pull and walked away with nearly $30,000 as his stunned audience looked on.
But the crypto community is not one to be played, especially by someone who they perceive to be a silly child. Therefore, the community chose to retaliate in the most fitting way: they transformed $QUANT into a skyrocketing success. Within just a few hours, the token’s market capitalization soared to $35 million, leaving the rug puller’s initial holdings to be valued at over $1.28 million—if only he hadn’t dumped it . Some internet sleuths even doxxed the young trader, exposing his name, address, and school. Following the QUANT fiasco, this trader proceeded to create two other tokens - $SORRY and $LUCY, and then promptly rugpulled on them as well, profiting $13,000 and $12,000 from each respectively.
Conclusion
These are only three of the craziest things to come out of current and past bull markets, and with the way the market is pumping these days, they won’t be the last. It’s recommended that all crypto traders approach any investment carefully and prioritize long-term decision-making over short-term hype, but when prices seem to be rolling upward endlessly, it’s difficult to not be caught up. Ironically all these wild stories may seem over-exuberant in hindsight, but they all did showcase some opportunity to make a quick buck at the time, if only for a moment. Only time will tell what other wild events the upcoming bull market will bring the crypto community, but one thing is for sure - things can get much crazier than what they are now.
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