Are we really in a bear market if a token that calls itself USELESS is mooning? That’s the head-scratcher I woke up to when the trading desk pinged me this morning. The broader crypto market’s bleeding red, Bitcoin can’t make up its mind above $26k, and yet—somehow—USELESS token punched out a 26% green candle overnight. Meanwhile, Pudgy Penguins are waddling dangerously close to an ice-thin floor, and Fartcoin (yes, the ticker is literally $FART) can’t seem to catch any wind.
Here’s What Actually Happened
Let’s get the raw numbers on the table before we wander off into speculation land. On September 12, 2023, at exactly 02:11 UTC—give or take a block confirmation—USELESS printed a 26.1% gain on CoinGecko’s 24-hour chart, blasting from $0.00000561 to $0.00000708. Volume? Up from a sleepy $480k the previous day to a punchy $1.83 million. That’s not doge-level madness, but for a micro-cap contract that only lives on BNB Chain, it’s eye-catching.
Fartcoin, by comparison, sank 4.7% in the same window. Its daily volume barely crept over $200k, and its RSI has been stuck around 38 on the 4-hour chart since the weekend. Pudgy Penguins—the OG NFT that briefly dethroned Bored Apes last year—hovered at a 4.2 ETH floor on OpenSea, flirting with a breakdown I honestly thought we’d already witnessed in July. Spoiler: apparently not yet.
Now Here’s the Interesting Part: Wallets Are Doing Weird Stuff
I ran a quick scan on Dune Analytics because I couldn’t wrap my head around why anyone would ape into something literally named USELESS. Wallet activity showed two chunky buys from what looks like a fresh address (created September 9th, funded via Binance) totaling 61 BNB. The address hasn’t moved a single token out since. A whale? Maybe, maybe not. Weirdly, their ENS name resolves to idontdodefi.eth—which almost feels like trolling at this point.
On the other flip, three of the top ten Fartcoin holders trimmed their bags last night, according to Bubblemaps. None of those wallets have a history of diamond hands; I checked—the same addresses rage-sold PEPE in May, and they keep doing it. My gut says they’re yield-farmers rotating capital, but I’m not entirely sure. It’s late, and on-chain sleuthing can get blurry after the fifth etherscan tab.
Volume Spikes Don’t Lie, but They Don’t Tell the Whole Story Either
Whenever I see semi-random spikes like this, I yank up TradingView and overlay social sentiment. LunarCrush had USELESS sentiment at 67 earlier today—above average, sure, but not frothy. Meanwhile, Fartcoin’s score dipped to 42, which tracks with the negative price action. So the data lines up, but it doesn’t really explain why USELESS buyers poured in.
If you zoom out on the daily, USELESS printed a classic falling-wedge breakout last week. Some of the TA purists I follow—shout-out @ChartingNemo—were already tweeting about a 30% upside target. Honestly, I glazed over those tweets because I assumed the name “USELESS” was one big meme. Joke’s on me.
Is There a Catalyst We Completely Missed?
Well, sort of. The project announced an upcoming burn-and-stake mechanic on their Discord last Friday. Apparently, 1% of every on-chain swap will get zapped into a burn vault, while another 1% drip-feeds staking rewards. That did not hit major newswires; I only found it after combing the community channels. The dev team’s small—five pseudonymous folks, none doxxed—but they claim the burn vault goes live next Thursday.
Will it move the needle long-term? Hard to say. Burn mechanics can be market catnip in the short run (remember SHIB’s 2021 burn bonanza?), but they rarely create sustainable value. Still, that Discord drop probably fueled the FOMO.
A Tangent About Naming Conventions
I’m going to wander off for a second. Why do meme-coin founders pick names like USELESS or FART looking for traction? There’s a reverse-psychology element: call your token trash, and if it pumps, people feel like they’re in on the joke. But there’s a ceiling to the meme. Institutions won’t touch a ticker called FART—BlackRock’s compliance desk would spontaneously combust.
Okay, tangent over. Back to the numbers.
Liquidity Deep Dive (Because Somebody Has to)
I pulled the BNB Chain pair data via PancakeSwap v3’s API. USELESS sits on a $1.2 million liquidity pool, 72% of which is locked for another 180 days according to Team.Finance. That’s actually decent for a meme micro-cap. Fartcoin’s pool? A wobbly $340k, with only 41% locked. Whenever I see less than 50% locked and a single wallet holding north of 10% of LP tokens (true here: 13.4% on one wallet), alarm bells go off.
Pudgy Penguins, while technically an NFT project and not a token, also showed thinning liquidity. Gem.xyz recorded only 22 sales in the past 24 hours—down 63% from the seven-day average. Not a great sign when ETH is already sluggish.
Why This Matters for Your Portfolio (Even If You Think Meme Coins Are Stupid)
Look, I get it. Some of you won’t touch meme coins with a ten-foot Ledger. But whether we like it or not, these tiny tokens are the canaries in the crypto coal mine. Retail appetite shows up here first. If capital’s brave enough to sprint into a ticker literally named USELESS, maybe—just maybe—the risk-on mood isn’t as dead as the macro bears insist.
But I can’t sugarcoat Fartcoin’s slide. Weak liquidity plus bag-dumping whales is a classic recipe for 50% drawdowns. If you hold it, please set alerts under $0.00000088; that’s the last visible support on the four-hour chart. Below that, it’s freefall until triple-zero territory.
Quick Hit Data That Jumped Out at Me
- USELESS 24-hr volume: $1.83 M (+281%)
- USELESS buy/sell ratio (last 12 hrs): 1.38, per DexTools
- Fartcoin 4-hr RSI: 38.2
- Pudgy Penguins floor: 4.2 ETH, 30-day high was 5.8 ETH
- BTC volatility index (BitVol): 43—pretty low, usually foreshadows a big move somewhere
- Google Trends for “USELESS crypto”: up 190% week-over-week (tiny base, but still)
Could We Be Looking at a Dead-Cat Bounce?
I’ll be honest: I’m conflicted. The technicals on USELESS look decent—higher highs, breakout volume, a burn catalyst around the corner. But when I squint at the bigger macro picture (Fed meeting next week, bond yields ticking up), I can’t quite shake the feeling this could fade as fast as it pumped. These low-float tokens have a half-life shorter than a TikTok trend.
One thing I do like is that the devs published their multisig addresses and time-locks. That’s more transparency than half the meme coins on BNB Chain. Does it offset the inherent risk? Not entirely, but it helps.
If You’re Tempted to Ape, At Least Use the Right Tools
“Risky trades aren’t evil, but blind trades are.” — Cobie
Cobie’s maxim nails it. If you insist on dabbling, here are quick tools I used:
- DexTools for real-time order flow (the Premium tier is worth it if you’re scalp-trading)
- Bubblemaps to visualize holder clusters—super handy for sniffing out whales about to nuke the chart
- Dune Analytics dashboards for historical transfers (there’s a public USELESS query someone made in July; it still works)
- TokenSniffer as a gut check—USELESS scored 65/100, Fartcoin scored a dismal 28/100, largely due to unlocked LP
The Elephant—or Penguin—In the Room
I can’t leave without addressing Pudgy Penguins. A lot of NFT OGs are convinced that the Pudgy Toys rollout in Walmart next month will be a savior catalyst. Maybe. But remember when Cool Cats partnered with Macy’s? The floor still cratered. Retail shelf space doesn’t always translate into Web3 floor bids. I’m cautiously optimistic, but my conviction hovers around 4/10 until I see actual sales data.
Wrapping Up With More Questions Than Answers
So where does this leave us? USELESS is the surprise mover, Fartcoin’s stuck in a smelly slump, and Penguins are skating on thin ice. The numbers point to a short-term rotation into USELESS on the back of a burn mechanic and maybe some coordinated whale buys. Whether it lasts… I honestly don’t know. If the broader market rolls over, micro-caps get hit first. But today, the chart looks undeniably bullish.
As always, size your bets, set stop-losses, and don’t let memes hijack your risk management. I’ll be stalking the burn vault launch next week. If the devs deliver and volume stays hot, maybe USELESS upgrades to “somewhat useful.” But that’s a big “if”, and I won’t pretend otherwise.
I’m not entirely sure about any of this, but watching a token called USELESS outperform Bitcoin by 27% in a single day does make the crypto winter feel a little less cold.
