A 23-year-old man committed suicide by swallowing a gun on Meme coins, and this tragic incident became a new Meme

Original source: Wall Street Journal

Compiled by: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily

Editor's note: As the market liquidity is increasingly tightening and attention resources are becoming increasingly scarce, Meme coins have gone from an attention economic carrier that tops entertainment and a vane of hot news to a wave of entertainment to death, and a human amplifier of the ultimate PVP. From the "burn incident" on pump.fun, to pornographic live tokens, to countless insider disks that quickly turn, the Meme coin craze gradually evolved into a massacre of retail investors by dealers and a cabal siege of individual customers in cattle. Now, a 23-year-old California man chose to commit suicide due to a Meme coin scam, mocking and whipping the cruel reality of "everything can be done with Meme coin." This is his story, his name is Arnold Haro.

Tragedy in the corner of the crypto world: When suicides become Meme

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A 23-year-old California man chose to end his life by pulling his gun and killing himself through live broadcast after experiencing a Meme coin scam.

At 3:28 pm on February 21, Arnold Haro was in extreme pain alone in a farm residence in a remote corner of California. He kept scratching his scalp, accompanied by heavy breathing, looking very painful. "If I die, I hope you can turn me (the suicide) into a Meme coin." He told the fans who watched him live on X platform.

About three hours later, facing the phone camera, he first picked up a bullet, then calmly put it into the Smith Wesson pistol in his hand, and then turned the bullet cabin - "bang" - a fresh life said goodbye to the world.

Later, his dying wish was realized - a Meme coin named after Haro's social media account soared to more than $2 million, and then quickly collapsed, the same as the ending of countless Meme coins. Of course, this is not an isolated incident. A crypto gold rush followed, with dozens of other imitation Meme coins rushing to emerge, and some even used live screenshots as token LOGOs. The Meme coin community tried to grab its own benefits from Haro's suicide.

Meme coin first originated from the rise of Dogecoin in 2013, and is a digital token designed to satirize the crypto world. Over time, the online subculture around the concept of "any cultural moment can have its own cryptocurrency" has developed. Meme coins related to celebrities, political leaders and anonymous marginal figures have flooded into the market. They have no intrinsic value and are just hyping up Memes and related figures that are coming on the Internet.

 Image source: Silas Stein/DPA/Zuma Press

There is no doubt that at a time when cryptocurrencies are soaring, Meme has developed into a part of the crypto market with a market capitalization of $2.8 trillion, but it has also proven to be a hotbed of scams—a speculative world where token creators make money, while other buyers end up holding these Meme coins that have gradually returned to zero after a brief surge. The U.S. federal authorities regard Meme coins as entertainment rather than securities, which means that many of the protections enjoyed by traditional asset investors do not apply here.

The Meme coin created with the gimmick of "Haro's Death" shows the world the cruel side of the Meme coin's boundaries - in this place, anything can become a Meme coin - or even a terrible suicide tragedy.

Arnold Haro's sister Maria Lucero Haro said his family would not comment on the cause of Arnold's death, but "my brother's death does not want to be anyone's headlines or entertainment material."

Meme coins are empty in an instant when encountering a Rug scam

As he fell into the vortex of Meme coins, Haro's life became increasingly turbulent.

The 23-year-old's crypto wallet shows that he has been an active trader in Meme and NFTs since the summer of 2024, especially those on the Solana chain.

The cryptocurrency market had been rising for a year at the time of Haro's death. In January, Bitcoin broke through $106,000 and hit an all-time high, with crypto enthusiasts and the Trump administration claiming that the future will be an era of crypto legalization, and Meme will become a growing part of it, including the TRUMP token issued by Trump.

But there are so many "pull-up shipping" scams in Meme coins that they have a special term - Rug pull (pull). Haro experienced such endless scams - Rug time and time again, which made his already unlucky life worse.

He lives in a rural area outside Fresno, California, and lives with his sister and mother, a family cleaner. Neighbors say they are low-key, while other family members see him as a fool.

According to police records, he works in the solar industry and has a 1-year-old daughter with his ex-girlfriend, but they have long been separated. In addition, he owns 2 cars: a silver Ford F-150 pickup truck and a BMW X6SUV. His ex-girlfriend said that in addition to working properly, he sold drugs such as fentanyl and methamphetamine to some homeless people near the riverbank area, according to police records. He himself is a drug addict and had experienced an overdose of fentanyl in 2020, which was so serious that he needed to learn to walk and speak again.

Under his account MistaFuccYou, he always posts some extreme elements of Meme and racist remarks. He boasted about collecting guns, taking oxycodone, and was banned from a steakhouse for not tipping the waiter. After a video of him circling and then vomiting was circulated, he himself became a Meme in a sense, and was called "360-degree vomiting brother" by people on social media.

His personal social account is full of screenshots and related information about cryptocurrency losses.

He once asked a crypto KOL known for hyping Meme coins to return $8 simply because the person didn't post enough content.

In January, he said he borrowed money to buy tokens launched by President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump. "I promised my parents a huge loan to buy TRUMP tokens to get rich overnight, but now it's down to shit," Haro posted on January 19. "I just bought some MELANIA tokens, but with my luck, it may not have any good results."

Both Meme coins fell sharply after a brief speculation, with TRUMP down 86% after its market cap approaching $15 billion. Haro also purchased a TRUMP imitation Meme coin that quickly returned to zero. On January 27, he privately sent another crypto trader on X saying he lost the last $500 on a token suspected to be associated with rapper Kanye West.

"I tried selling this token, but I couldn't sell it," he wrote. As it turns out, this token has nothing to do with Kanye. A screenshot shows that Haro's losses are as high as 35.9%.

At the same time, his situation in the illegal drug trade seems to be gradually reaching a conclusion. According to information revealed to police by his ex-girlfriend, Haro had sold two stolen cars to a Mexican drug dealer in exchange for a large amount of marijuana. He also told his ex-girlfriend that drug dealers threatened to kill him. According to police records, Haro was also very frustrated at finding out that his ex-girlfriend was still dating another man. "Arnold owes a lot of people a lot of money, and he feels very nervous and anxious about it," a report summarizing the interview with his ex-girlfriend reads.

No one can tell what exactly caused Haro to eventually pull the trigger and choose to die, and the police record did not have any last words or explanations left by him.

When a death is currencyed by Meme, who is the murderer?

When Haro's ex-girlfriend checked her phone after get off work, she saw a video of death posted by Haro on her account.

"I called because my daughter's father played Russian roulette live on his social media account," she told the police operator at about 5:03 pm, according to the recording and police records. "I don't know if this is true."

At 5:43 pm, police reported a body of a male with a gunshot wound to the head was found in Haro's room. His mother was outside the house crying hysterically, but still couldn't accept this fact.

Six days after Haro's death, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a statement saying that those Meme coins created as Haro's character are fine. "Meme coins are usually purchased for entertainment, social interaction and cultural purposes," the agency said, and should compare Meme coins to collectibles. The statement added that it was mainly speculation that helped boost their value.

According to the archived version of the video, at the last moment before his death, Haro requested that any Meme coins appear after his death be sent to his Solana wallet.

These zeroed Meme coins continue to haunt his family.

Meme coins related to Haro's death have surged on Pump.Fun (it's a website that allows users to quickly create Meme coins, as quickly as Tumblr creates blogs).

Some Meme coins use static images taken from the live broadcast as avatar, where Haro closes his eyes and presses his gun against his head.

Other Meme coins use his X-platform avatar, or screenshots from his vomiting video.

The most popular one is a Meme coin named MISTA, whose market value once soared to more than $2 million, and then plummeted in half in one day, with current trading volume of about $80,000.

A Pump.Fun spokesman said in a statement that "Mr. Haro's death is a tragedy, and Pump.Fun has nothing to do with this matter except as allowing users to create and issue obviously morally low-key news-related crypto tokens."

Some token creators claim they are raising funds for Haro's family and sending tokens to Haro's wallet, but it's unclear whether his family will be able to obtain the funds. The developer who created the MISTA token claimed that he had donated $5,000 to the GoFundMe platform to cover Haro's funeral expenses.

"Please don't use our pain and my brother's death to make a profit." Haro's sister said, although this sentence seems so helpless and powerless now.