The meme coin surged by 1400% after an April Fools' joke

According to CoinMarketCap, the price of the Solana blockchain-based token JONATHAN increased by nearly 1400% in just one hour on April 1st, reaching an all-time high of $0.00038. The price inevitably corrected: currently, the meme coin is trading around $0.000054.

The trading volume of the token on the first day of April jumped almost to $640 000, although its fully diluted market cap—if all tokens are in circulation at the current price—(is only )000, and liquidity is $73 000.

The joke was posted by an account on the social network X, pretending to be veterinarian Jonathan Joe Hollins $22 Joe Hollins(. The unknown author of the account first posted about the turtle's death, then later, in a separate post that was later deleted, claimed it was just a joke.

“The post about Jonathan’s death got 1.7 million views — it’s crazy. Yes, he’s still alive. It was just an April Fools’ joke,” — said the fake Hollins.

Later, investigative enthusiasts found out that the account’s author was in Brazil and used an IP address spoof to appear as if from the United States.

Immediately after the first post, the news of Jonathan’s death was spread by several reputable sources, including Wikipedia and BBC, which mentioned that the turtle had met Queen Elizabeth II and other high-ranking officials during its long life. After the news broke, St. Helena Island governor Nigel Phillips )Nigel Phillips( and the real veterinarian of the turtle, Joe Hollins, announced that Jonathan was alive.

The JONATHAN token was created eight months ago using the meme coin generator Pump.fun. Since early March, the account associated with the token on X has regularly posted turtle memes generated with artificial intelligence.

In January, the meme coin The Nietzschean Penguin, launched on the Solana network, surged by 564% after the official White House account posted a tweet with the phrase Embrace the Penguin )“Embrace the Penguin”(.