Elon Musk's Strange Name Change on X Turns a Trader's $66 into $3 Million
The market capitalization of KEKIUS based on Ethereum skyrocketed to $380 million on January 1 before dropping to $100 million after Musk changed his profile name and picture back.
Elon Musk's brief name change on X to "Kekius Maximus" — referring to the Pepe-Gladiator meme — helped a lucky memecoin trader turn $66 worth of Ether into $3 million in just 18 days.
The trader purchased 10.17 million memecoins Kekius Maximus (KEKIUS) 18 days ago on December 14 and sold 2.81 million tokens for 60.3 Ether on January 1 while holding the rest, resulting in an astonishing growth of 45,900 times, blockchain analytics company Lookonchain reported on X.
Kekius Maximus is a combination of the famous internet character Pepe the Frog and Maximus Decimus Meridius, the protagonist of the 2000 film Gladiator, played by Russell Crowe.
Etherscan data shows that the memecoin KEKIUS was created on December 13, accumulating up to $11.4 million by December 31 before exploding to $380 million at peak on January 1, according to CoinGecko.
Musk also posted AI-generated images of the cartoon character inspired by the frog Pepe preparing for battle at the famous Roman Colosseum in Rome.
One of his posts garnered 48.2 million views on X, making the price surge of memecoin KEKIUS even stronger at that time.