A 23-year-old man committed suicide by swallowing a gun during a livestream about Meme coins, and this tragic event has become a new Meme.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Compiled by: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily

Editor’s Note: As market liquidity tightens and attention resources become increasingly scarce, Meme coins have transformed from a vehicle of the attention economy centered on entertainment to a wave of entertaining death and a human amplifier of ultimate PVP. From the “burning incident” on pump.fun, to adult live streaming tokens, and countless fleeting and perishable insider schemes, the Meme coin craze has gradually evolved into a slaughter of retail investors by market makers, a siege by conspiracy groups on casino patrons. Now, a 23-year-old man from California has chosen to commit suicide due to a Meme coin scam, using his life to satirize and whip the harsh reality that “everything can be a Meme coin.” This is his story, and his name is Arnold Haro.

The tragedy in the corners of the crypto world: when suicide incidents also become Meme coins

A 23-year-old man from California chose to end his life by live-streaming his suicide with a gun after experiencing a Meme coin scam.

At 3:28 PM on February 21, in a remote corner of a farm residence in California, Arnold Haro was in extreme agony all alone. He kept scratching his scalp, accompanied by heavy breathing, looking very distressed. “If I die, I hope you can turn this (suicide thing) into a Meme coin,” he said to his fans watching his live stream on platform X.

About three hours later, facing the phone camera, he first picked up a bullet, then calmly loaded it into the Smith & Wesson handgun in his hand, then rotated the chamber—“bang”—a vibrant life bid farewell to this world.

Later, his dying wish was fulfilled - the market value of a meme coin named after Haro’s social media account soared to more than $2 million, and then quickly collapsed, just like countless memes. Of course, this is not an isolated incident. A crypto gold rush ensued, with dozens of other imitation meme coins popping up, some even using live screenshots as token logos, in an attempt by the meme community to grab a share of Haro’s suicide.

Meme coins originated with the rise of Dogecoin in 2013 and are digital tokens aimed at satirizing the crypto world. Over time, a subculture has developed around the idea that “any cultural moment can have its own cryptocurrency.” Meme coins associated with celebrities, political leaders, and anonymous fringe figures have flooded the market; they have no intrinsic value and are simply a hype around the memes and related personalities that flood the internet.

Image source: Silas Stein/DPA/Zuma Press

Undoubtedly, as the cryptocurrency frenzy surges, Meme coins have become a part of the $2.8 trillion market, but they have also proven to be a breeding ground for scams—a speculative world where bubbles and crashes coexist, in which token creators amass wealth while other bag holders end up holding Meme coins that gradually return to zero after fleeting spikes. U.S. federal authorities view Meme coins as entertainment rather than securities, meaning that many of the protections enjoyed by traditional asset investors do not apply here.

The Meme coin created with the gimmick of “The Death of Haro” showcases the brutal side of the lack of boundaries in the Meme coin world—where anything can become a Meme coin—even a tragic suicide.

Arnold Haro’s sister, Maria Lucero Haro, stated that the family would not comment on the cause of Arnold’s death, but “I do not want my brother’s death to become anyone’s news headline or entertainment material.”

encountered a Rug pull scam, Meme coins turned to nothing in an instant.

As Haro becomes increasingly entangled in the vortex of Meme coins, his life becomes more and more tumultuous.

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

When Haro passed away, the cryptocurrency market had been rising for a year. In January of this year, Bitcoin broke through $106,000, setting a new historical high. Crypto enthusiasts and the Trump administration claimed that the future would be an era of cryptocurrency legalization, with Meme coins becoming an increasingly significant part of it, including the TRUMP token issued by Trump.

However, there are so many “rug pull” scams in Meme coins that they have a dedicated term - Rug pull. What Haro experienced was exactly this endless series of scams - one Rug after another, making his already modest life even more difficult.

He lives in a rural area on the outskirts of Fresno, California, relying on his sisters and mother—a house cleaner—for support. Neighbors say they are very low-key, while other family members see him as a fool.

According to police records, he worked in the solar energy industry and had a 1-year-old daughter with his ex-girlfriend, but they had long since separated. In addition, he owned 2 cars: a silver Ford F-150 pickup and a BMW X6 SUV. According to police records, his ex-girlfriend stated that, in addition to his regular job, he sold drugs such as fentanyl and methamphetamine to some homeless people near the riverbank area. He was also a drug user and had experienced a fentanyl overdose in 2020, severe enough to need to relearn how to walk and talk.

Under his account MistaFuccYou, he always posts memes and racist remarks of extreme elements. He boasted that he had a collection of guns, took oxycodone, and was barred from a steakhouse for not tipping waiters. After a video of him spinning in circles and vomiting went viral, he became a meme in a sense, known as “360-degree vomiting brother” by people on social media.

There are screenshots and related information about cryptocurrency losses everywhere on his personal social media account.

He once asked a crypto KOL known for hyping Meme coins to return 8 dollars, simply because this person did not post enough content.

In January this year, he said he borrowed money to buy the tokens launched by President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump. “I promised my parents that I would use a huge loan to buy TRUMP tokens to get rich overnight, but now it’s gone to shit,” Haro posted on January 19. “I just bought some MELANIA tokens, but with my luck, it probably won’t turn out well either.”

Both of these Meme coins plummeted significantly after a brief hype, with TRUMP dropping 86% after reaching a market value of nearly $15 billion. Haro also bought a TRUMP imitation Meme coin that quickly went to zero. On January 27, he privately messaged another crypto trader on X, stating that he lost his last $500 on a token suspected to be related to rapper Kanye West.

“I tried to sell this token, but I couldn’t sell it,” he wrote. It turned out that this token had nothing to do with Kanye. A screenshot showed that Haro’s loss was as high as 35.9%.

At the same time, his situation in the illegal drug trade seems to be gradually heading towards an end. According to information revealed to the 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 the dealer had threatened to kill him. According to police records, Haro was also very upset to find out that his ex-girlfriend was dating another man. “Arnold owes a lot of money to many people, and he feels very nervous and anxious about it,” a report summarizing the police interviews with his ex-girlfriend stated.

No one can clearly say what ultimately led Haro to pull the trigger and choose death; police records do not contain any last words or explanations left by him.

When a death is meme-ified, who is the murderer?

After Haro’s ex-girlfriend got off work and checked her phone, she saw the death video that Haro posted on account X.

“I called because my daughter’s father is live-streaming playing Russian roulette on his social media account,” she told the police dispatcher at around 5:03 PM, according to recordings and police records. “I don’t know if this is real.”

At 5:43 p.m., police reported the discovery of a male body with a gunshot wound to the head in Haro’s room. His mother was outside the house, crying hysterically, still unable to accept the fact.

Six days after Haro’s death, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a statement saying that there are no issues with the Meme coins created in the image of Haro. “Meme coins are typically purchased for entertainment, social interaction, and cultural purposes,” the agency stated, noting that Meme coins should be compared to collectibles. The statement added that their value is primarily driven by speculation.

According to the archived version of the video, in his final moments before his death, Haro requested that any Meme coins that appeared after his death be sent to his Solana wallet.

These already zeroed Meme coins continue to trouble his family.

The Meme coin related to Haro’s death surged on Pump.Fun (a site that allows users to quickly create Meme coins as easily as Tumblr creates blogs).

Some Meme coins use static images captured from live broadcasts as avatars. In the image, Haro has his eyes tightly shut, holding a gun to his head.

Other Meme coins have used his X platform avatar or screenshots from his vomiting video.

The most popular is a Meme coin named MISTA, which once saw its market value soar to over $2 million, only to crash down by half within a day. The current trading volume is about $80,000.

A spokesperson for Pump.Fun stated in a statement, “Mr. Haro’s death is a tragedy, and Pump.Fun has no other relation to this matter aside from allowing users to create and issue obviously unethical, news-related crypto tokens.”

Some token creators claim that they are raising funds for Haro’s family and have sent tokens to Haro’s wallet, but it is currently unclear whether his family will be able to access these funds. The developers of the MISTA token claim to have donated $5,000 to the GoFundMe platform to cover Haro’s funeral expenses.

“Please do not exploit our suffering and the death of my brother for profit,” said Haro’s sister, although this statement now seems so helpless and powerless.