Propose an edit: Moo Deng

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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

Moo Deng (MOODENG) is a meme coin on the [[Solana]] blockchain named after a baby pygmy hippopotamus at Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand. Launched on [[pump.fun]] on September 10, 2024, it became the archetypal "animal meta" coin of late 2024, turning a real zoo animal into a nine figure asset.

## Origin

The real Moo Deng, a Thai name meaning "bouncy pork" (a type of Thai meatball) chosen by fans through a social media poll after her birth in July 2024, fit her habit of "deng," bouncing around her enclosure. She became a global internet celebrity through videos posted by her zookeeper, Atthapon Nundee, who had already been posting animal videos from Khao Kheow Open Zoo for five years before Moo Deng went viral starting around September 2024. As the meme saturated TikTok and X, an anonymous deployer launched MOODENG on pump.fun. It was one of several hippo coins created that week, but this deployment won the attention war and [[graduation]] to Raydium. The zoo itself had no involvement with the token, though it became a controversy in its own right: as visitor numbers jumped to 6,000 to 7,000 people a day on weekends, up from about 3,000, PETA and other activist groups accused Khao Kheow Open Zoo of exploiting Moo Deng for profit, alleging crowds shouted and threw objects at her enclosure during her sleeping hours. Thailand's Minister of Natural Resources and Environment publicly defended the zoo's standards, additional CCTV and staff were added, and a tourist was separately arrested for firing a slingshot at animals in the zoo.

## Market history

MOODENG passed a 70 million dollar market capitalization within about two weeks and reached roughly 100 million dollars by September 26, 2024. Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin's involvement went beyond a mention: on October 5, 2024 he sold about 10.7 billion of an unsolicited MOODENG airdrop via CoWSwap, and on October 7 he donated 260.15 ETH, reported as roughly 640,000 to 822,000 dollars depending on the outlet, to Kanro, a biotech charity focused on airborne disease research, writing on X, "I appreciate all the memecoins that donate portions of their supply directly to charity... Anything that gets sent to me gets donated to charity too (thanks moodeng! The 10B from today is going to anti airborne disease" causes. He retained roughly 40 to 50 billion MOODENG, worth about 7.56 million dollars at the time. The sale and donation news coincided with price gains reported as high as 480 percent in 24 hours and roughly 4,000 percent from launch level by mid October 2024. Binance's first MOODENG listing followed quickly: a MOODENGUSDT perpetual futures contract with up to 75x leverage went live on Binance Futures around October 25, 2024. After cooling off, the coin rallied to an all time high around 0.50 dollars in December 2024 amid further Binance listing rumors, with its peak market capitalization reported at just over 614 million dollars. OKX and Binance.US also added MOODENG for spot trading at various points, broadening its exchange footprint. A second life came in 2025: a Binance Alpha spot style listing on May 11, 2025, ignited a surge of several hundred percent to a market capitalization near 257 million dollars. Upbit Korea then announced trading support on July 3, 2025, and the price jumped from about 0.1392 dollars to about 0.2251 dollars in a single trade span, with reported 24 hour gains ranging from about 39 to 60 percent across different outlets and trading volume spiking more than 858 percent. By 2026 the token had retraced most of these moves; CoinGecko showed MOODENG trading around 0.084 dollars with a market capitalization near 36 million dollars as of August 2026, down sharply from its December 2024 peak.

## Cultural impact

Moo Deng crystallized the late 2024 "animal meta," in which real viral animals ([[Peanut the Squirrel]], Chill Guy's dog adjacent cousins, and a parade of hippos, ducks, and capybaras) were tokenized within hours of trending. It demonstrated pump.fun's core loop at scale: internet event, instant token, attention flywheel, exchange listing. The coin's repeated revivals through 2025 also made it a case study in how exchange listings, rather than the underlying meme, drive the second and third acts of a meme coin's life in [[the trenches]].

## References

- CoinGecko: https://www.coingecko.com/learn/what-is-moodeng-crypto-hippo-memecoin-solana
- Decrypt: https://decrypt.co/250864/moo-deng-solana-meme-coin-blasts-past-70m-market-cap-in-two-weeks
- CoinDesk: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/09/26/crypto-inspired-by-moo-deng-zooms-to-100m-as-hippo-meme-takes-over-internet
- Cryptopolitan: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/moodeng-moodeng-reaches-all-time-high-amid-rumors-of-binance-loading-up-for-future-listing/
- crypto.news: https://crypto.news/moo-deng-crypto-surges-over-114-after-binance-alpha-listing/
- CCN: https://www.ccn.com/analysis/crypto/moodeng-price-spikes-upbit-listing-sparks-memecoin-reversal/
- huffingtonpost.co.uk: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/moo-deng-name-meaning_uk_66f12785e4b03a18c4a20cd3
- CBS News: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/moo-deng-baby-hippo-thailand-zoo-bouncy-pork-goes-viral/
- khaosodenglish.com: https://www.khaosodenglish.com/life/animal/2024/09/19/the-thai-zoo-home-to-baby-hippo-and-internet-sensation-moo-deng-is-patenting-the-pygmy/
- peta.org: https://www.peta.org/news/moo-deng-tragic-thai-zoo/
- khaosodenglish.com: https://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/2024/10/21/khao-kheow-zoo-files-police-report-on-visitor-misusing-slingshot/
- X post by @VitalikButerin: https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/1843260976206082216
- Coinspeaker: https://www.coinspeaker.com/binance-adds-moodeng-futures-market/
- CoinGape: https://coingape.com/moodeng-price-blows-up-90-as-binance-launches-perpetual-contract/
- OKX: https://www.okx.com/help/okx-to-list-moodeng-moo-deng-for-spot-trading
- support.binance.us: https://support.binance.us/en/articles/11649801-binance-us-lists-moodeng-trade-now
- BeInCrypto: https://beincrypto.com/moodeng-coin-upbit-listing-surge/
- CoinGecko: https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/moo-deng

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