Community members have accused Siqi Chen, the creator of the charity meme coin Mira (MIRA), of an exit scam involving the token Zero.
so i launched a test token called zero, with the description: “this is going to zero … do not buy it” thinking that people would read it and not buy it.
i didn’t expect everyone to just be able to see it and buy it — i thought it’s something i would have needed to tweet about.… pic.twitter.com/bH4b0PIlJH
— Siqi Chen (@blader) December 30, 2024
In late December, Chen, the founder of the Runway app, launched the Mira token to raise funds for brain tumor research. He named the token after his daughter Mira, who suffers from the condition.
The project attracted interest from the community. Donations exceeded $1 million, and the value of tokens in Chen’s wallets rose from $400,000 to $14 million. The reaction from participants was largely positive.
A few days later, the creator of Mira released a “test token” called Zero on the Pump.fun platform. The asset’s description stated: “This token will go to zero and you will definitely lose all your money. Do not buy it.”
Chen did not publicly promote Zero, but used the same wallet for its release as he did for Mira. Some Pump.fun users saw “a new meme coin from the creator of the viral Mira” and decided to invest.
“I didn’t expect everyone to just be able to see it and buy it. I thought it’s something I would have needed to tweet about. Then I panicked, sold 40% of the supply, and made about 444 SOL,” explained the creator.
Chen reported that, realizing the situation, he repurchased the sold tokens with the 444 SOL he earned and then destroyed them.
“I’m very sorry, I’m still figuring out how all this works,” stated Chen.
The creator of the problematic meme coin added that he had been in talks with representatives of several pediatric organizations interested in fundraising opportunities similar to Mira. Because of this, he allegedly tried to understand how Pump.fun works and launched the Zero token as practice, marked “do not buy.”
Chen promised to fully compensate the losses of the “test token” buyers.
Some community members suspected the experimenter of deceit. One published a screenshot of a message from Chen, where he discusses gas fees from the perspective of an experienced cryptocurrency user, not a novice.
Thing is, he is lying, not new, he knows very well what he was doing pic.twitter.com/asYRdAMr5D
— retardio (@retardiocr) December 31, 2024
Another user suggested that the release of Zero was driven by “a taste for easy money,” fueled by Mira’s success. He called the explanation of releasing a test asset for learning purposes an ineffective pretense.
“You tried your luck and lost. And ‘no profit’ here means nothing,” stated the commentator.
On-chain detective ZachXBT noted that Chen has previously justified his actions as circumstantial.
>made exact same excuse a few days ago pic.twitter.com/rmm9Gk3Up4
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) December 30, 2024
“[Chen] made the exact same excuse a few days ago,” noted the analyst.
This refers to an incident where Chen allegedly repurchased 15% of a “zeroed” token’s supply for 100 SOL, “pumped” the price, and earned $60,000. At that time, the creator of Mira explained it as a “misclick,” repurchased the tokens, and claimed to have burned them.
Chen insists that he did not profit from the Zero incident.
zach i did but please check the chain i made zero from either of these
the risk reward of this doesn’t make sense for me to have done this intentionally, you know that
— Siqi Chen (@blader) December 30, 2024
“With this risk-reward ratio, it didn’t make sense for me to attempt this intentionally,” explained the meme coin creator.
At the time of writing, MIRA is trading at $0.016. Its market capitalization is $16.16 million. The token has depreciated approximately fivefold from its peak of $0.08, reached on December 26.
Earlier in December, journalists named the three “most absurd” meme coins of 2024.