Web3 Watch: Hippo-themed ‘Moo Deng’ memecoin soars to $255M market cap

Crypto memecoins have been decorated with dogs, cats and frogs, but we haven’t had a baby hippo until now.

The latest animal-themed memecoin to sweep crypto is MOODENG. The coin was inspired by viral internet sensation Moo Deng — whose name translates to “bouncy pig” — a two-month-old pygmy hippopotamus in Thailand’s Khao Kheow Open Zoo.

MOODENG marks the first memecoin token to hit a $200 million market cap in recent months.

The token was launched on Solana with the pump.fun memecoin maker, and is currently valued at a $255 million market cap with about $64 million in trading volumes in the last 24 hours. It’s now the 22nd largest memecoin by market capitalization.

The memecoin has already inspired accompanying memecoins for Moo Deng’s mother, Jonah, and her siblings Moo Toon and Moo Waan. Moo Deng also has an unofficial Twitter fan page with almost 50,000 followers, and has gained token listings on several CEXs including MEXC and HTX.

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According to Arkham Intelligence, an $800 purchase of MOODENG by one trader four hours after the token launch has grown into $3.5 million within 15 days.

Audius launches pay-to-unlock

After almost eleven months in private beta, the Web3 music streaming service Audius announced on Friday the launch of its “pay-to-unlock” monetization features to all users.

Fans on Audius will now be able to pay artists through the platform for streaming music (or via buying songs directly) with their credit cards, which is then converted and received by artists in USDC.

Under Audius’s revenue-sharing model, 10% of every payment is paid to the Audius treasury for onchain governance.

Audius has entered into licensing deals with several music publishers, most notably Kobalt, one of the largest independent music publishers in the UK.

One interesting stat:

The Ethereum Name Service domain name uber.eth was bought for 13 ETH ($34,938).

Also of note:

Polymarket launched an app on the App Store.
Chiliz Group, the blockchain company behind the Socios rewards platform and fan token-focused L1 Chiliz Chain is launching Chiliz Sports, an independent division to bridge the world of sports and blockchain.
Iggy Azalea announced Motherland, an online casino and gaming platform that will be integrated with her MOTHER memecoin token.

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