Propose an edit: Dave Portnoy

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Title Category One sentence summary Infobox, one "key: value" per line Article body, markdown, use [[wiki links]] and end with a ## References section

Dave Portnoy is the founder of Barstool Sports and one of the most famous mainstream figures to wade into [[Solana]] meme coins during the early 2025 frenzy. Already known in finance culture for his Davey Day Trader persona during the 2020 stock boom, Portnoy brought an enormous audience into [[the trenches]] and became a case study in how celebrity promotion, candor, and extraction can coexist in one account.

## Crypto before the trenches

Portnoy's crypto history predates his meme coin run by half a decade and established the pattern. In 2020 he bought about 2 million dollars of Bitcoin at around 11,000 dollars after meeting the Winklevoss twins, then sold almost immediately, the first entry in a long documented record of inverse timing. In May 2021 he put 40,000 dollars into [[SafeMoon]] on camera, saying "Everyone's Ponzi, Ponzi, Ponzi. it's early, if it is a Ponzi, get in on the ground floor," while warning followers to invest at their own risk. Months later he said the stake was worth about 2,000 dollars, and after SafeMoon's founders were criminally charged he conceded it "turns out it was a ponzi scheme after all."

## JAILSTOOL

In February 2025 Portnoy promoted JAILSTOOL, formally Stool Prisondente, a token he said he did not create, and declared it the one coin he would not sell until it reached a 1 billion dollar market capitalization. The token, covered at [[jailstool]], became the flagship of his meme coin period. On February 10, 2025, on chain observers and outlets including Cryptopolitan reported that he sold his JAILSTOOL for a profit of over 118,000 dollars despite the pledge; Portnoy disputed the framing of his promises, stating he had only ever committed to holding that single coin and quipping that everything else he had said he could sell.

## GREED and GREED2

Days later Portnoy launched a token called GREED, openly acquiring about 357.9 million tokens, roughly 35.8 percent of supply. When he sold, netting about 258,000 dollars according to The Block, the price collapsed more than 90 percent. Portnoy presented the episode as a demonstration of its own name, telling followers the coin was called GREED for a reason, and promptly launched GREED2. Decrypt characterized the sequence as pumping and dumping, a characterization Portnoy rejected on the grounds that he had been transparent about his intent to sell; BeInCrypto reported the backlash from holders left with the losses.

## LIBRA

Portnoy also bought into [[LIBRA]], the token at the center of the [[libra scandal]]. According to statements by Kelsier's Hayden Davis reported by crypto media, Portnoy lost millions trading it, and Davis refunded him about 5 million dollars in USDC as a personal gesture, funds Portnoy converted to SOL. The refund became a durable talking point in coverage of the scandal, cited as evidence of the two tier market in which connected celebrities were made whole while retail was not; Portnoy said publicly that he had disclosed his losses and had done nothing improper.

## 2026

The inverse timing pattern continued into the next cycle. Portnoy bought Bitcoin again at 100,000 dollars, near the top, and with the price around 62,000 dollars in July 2026 he told Fox Business, "Every time I sell it, it goes nuclear. Every time I buy it, it tanks," adding "There's nothing I've been wrong about more than Bitcoin." This time he vowed to keep the position: "I'm just holding. I'll just hold this thing down to $0 ... I'd rather go down with the ship this time." He also disclosed an XRP bag bought near 1.70 dollars that was down several million dollars, and in June 2026 he pledged not to sell either position despite the losses.

## Significance

Portnoy's 2025 run compressed the [[celebrity coin wave]] into one persona: launch, pledge, sale, apology cycle, relaunch. His shamelessness was itself the product, and trench culture split on whether he was the most honest actor in the casino, since he narrated his own selling, or simply the loudest. Jailstool to a billion remains a running joke for any abandoned promise in meme coin discourse.

## References

- The Block: https://www.theblock.co/post/341696/dave-portnoy-nets-over-250000-by-creating-and-selling-greed-memecoin
- Decrypt: https://decrypt.co/306698/dave-portnoy-token-rugs
- Coinspeaker: https://www.coinspeaker.com/dave-portnoys-greed-meme-coin-crashes-99-he-cashes-out-258k/
- BeInCrypto: https://beincrypto.com/dave-portnoy-meme-coin-greed/
- Cryptopolitan: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/dave-portnoy-libra-greed-jailstool-greed2/
- moguldom.com: https://moguldom.com/354760/barstool-sports-ceo-invests-40000-in-admitted-shtcoin-ponzi-scheme-and-bubbleheads-follow-him/
- dailyhive.com: https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/dave-portnoy-barstool-safemoon
- marketrealist.com: https://marketrealist.com/p/dave-portnoy-safemoon/
- thedeepdive.ca: https://thedeepdive.ca/safemoon-founders-arrested-dave-portnoy-admits-token-is-ponzi-scheme/
- Yahoo Finance: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/bitcoin-news-today-dave-portnoy-110951199.html
- Yahoo: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/celebrity/articles/every-time-buy-tanks-dave-171343207.html
- TheStreet: https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/dave-portnoy-makes-bold-call-as-bitcoin-xrp-crash

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