{"id":23413,"date":"2025-04-23T15:16:58","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T15:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=23413"},"modified":"2025-04-23T15:16:58","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T15:16:58","slug":"dave-portnoy-memecoins-are-legalized-ponzi-schemes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=23413","title":{"rendered":"Dave Portnoy: Memecoins are \u2018Legalized Ponzi Schemes\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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They call him \u201cEl Presidente.\u201d But unlike the other President, Dave Portnoy draws a line at launching a memecoin. He worries his followers will lose their shirts.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI got involved in memecoins because I wanted to launch a Barstool memecoin, but I didn\u2019t want my fans and followers to lose money,\u201d he said in an interview with CoinDesk. Memecoins are \u201clegalized Ponzi schemes,\u201d he said, \u201cthere\u2019s no value to it, so you gotta get in and get out before it crashes.\u201d [Note: memecoins aren\u2019t legalized in the U.S. but they are popular.]<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

While Portnoy hasn\u2019t launched a Barstool branded memecoin, he has launched other memecoins. In February he launched GREED, a token that reached a market cap of $41.5 million. According to Lookonchain<\/a>, Portnoy bought 357.92M $GREED, totalling 35.79% of the total supply, then sold all in a single transaction causing the price to crash. He made around $258,000.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Barstool Sports founder took to X<\/a> in the aftermath to say, \u201cI warned people I could sell. I could have cashed out +1 million. I let it drop 75% before cashing out. Lots of people made money. I took profits + poured it into #jailstool which I can\u2019t touch. I didn\u2019t make a dime on it. Some people won. Some lost. Only the losers keep bitching.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Portnoy started trading stocks during the COVID-19 pandemic, and even launched the YouTube channel Davey Day Trader, where fans could follow his trades. His trades weren\u2019t always successful, and there wasn\u2019t always a clear strategy, but they were entertaining. At one point, he pulled letters out of a Scrabble bag, put RTX (Raytheon Technologies Corporation) together, and put $200,000 into the stock.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

It was around this time that Portnoy was introduced to bitcoin. \u201cI don\u2019t think you can be involved in anything, stock market [or] finance without crypto being a major part of it,\u201d he says now. He has a love\/hate relationship with bitcoin because he says he\u2019s \u201cbeen on the wrong side of it every time it rips.\u201d Over the years he\u2019s also experimented with investing in cryptocurrencies like XRP.<\/p>\n

Although Portnoy got into memecoins because he wanted to launch one for the Barstool community, he admits that he still doesn\u2019t understand how to implement blockchain technology or cryptocurrencies into his business model. Barstool once accepted bitcoin as part of its Barstool Fund to help small businesses, but out of $50 million raised, he said only $30,000 came from bitcoin. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey talked big, big talk, but it didn\u2019t work out,\u201d he said, reflecting on the bitcoin community who persuaded him to accept the cryptocurrency. \u201cCrypto is the league leader in people telling you what [you] should be doing, and it\u2019s also the league leader in people I don\u2019t trust.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Portnoy has experimented with memecoins, bitcoin, and even launched an NFT attached to his popular One Bite Pizza Reviews YouTube channel that sold for $138,000. And, although he doesn\u2019t always understand them, he says \u201cas much as I have back and forth with the crypto community, I actually love them. I think they\u2019re hilarious […] an interesting group, which I guess I’m a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Dave Portnoy will be sharing more about his crypto journey at Consensus 2025 in Toronto on May 15. Get your tickets here.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They call him \u201cEl Presidente.\u201d But unlike the other President, Dave Portnoy draws a line at launching a memecoin. He worries his followers will lose their shirts. \u201cI got involved in memecoins because I wanted to launch a Barstool memecoin, but I didn\u2019t want my fans and followers to lose money,\u201d he said in an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-23413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}