Dave Portnoy, the 47-year-old businessman, has been making rounds on social media, but not in a good way. Portnoy is behind several meme tokens, JAILSTOOL, LIBRA, GREED, and GREED 2, all of which have led investors straight “into the trenches.” But why do some members of the crypto community still buy in on his memecoins? Bad publicity is still publicity. It all started on February 10, when Portnoy first sold his batch of Stool Prisondente (JAILSTOOL) for a profit of over $118,000 worth of Solana after he had promised holders that he would hold the tokens. Shortly after, the memecoin, which is a joke paying homage to his X user handle, Stool Presidente, accelerated downwards by over 80%. All the community could do was count their losses and move on, but the Barstool Sports founder did not let them. LIBRA: Landing Argentina’s President in trouble Portnoy revealed that he returned approximately six million LIBRA tokens to the project’s founder, Hayden Davis, after learning that he was not allowed to disclose the compensation he received for promoting the token. Speaking in a February 16 X space, he said he was initially paid between six and 6.5 million tokens in exchange for social media promotion. However, Portnoy claimed he refunded Davis the tokens upon realizing he could not publicly state that he was part of the project. “I can’t accept coins if you don’t f*cking let me say you gave me coins, and I’m part of the project,” he stated. The businessman added that he still held onto the LIBRA tokens he personally purchased, an investment that quickly plummeted in value and caused him to lose over $5 million. Some sources say Hayden “refunded” Portnoy’s losses, which made investors even more enraged. The LIBRA token was also promoted by Argentine President Javier Milei, who endorsed it last Friday in a now-deleted X post. Melei’s promotional post sent the token’s price up to a 2-month high of $0.021 before collapsing by over 95%, wiping out over $105 million in liquidity. When rug-pull allegations started heating up, Milei quickly distanced himself from the project and claimed to have had little prior knowledge of it. His opponents are now calling for an impeachment due to his involvement on the grounds that “he was aware of how the project works.” Round 2: The GREED token collapses Merely a day after the LIBRA fallout, Portnoy launched a new meme coin called GREED. According to on-chain analytics firm Lookonchain, late Tuesday, Portnoy acquired 357.92 million GREED tokens, accounting for 35.79% of the total supply. The Barstool Sports CEO took to X to defend his cause for launching the token, writing: “ There are lots of people in the meme coin world who try to act like they are the moral authority when all they want to do is dump on you and make easy money. You are all greedy. At least admit it. I won’t screw you, but the guy next to you may. This collectible token commemorates that. “ Portnoy reportedly sold his entire stake in a single transaction later, triggering a 99% collapse in the token’s price. While he reportedly profited around $258,000, many investors suffered significant losses. “ I 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 the profits + poured it into JAILSTOOL, which I can’t touch. I didn’t make a dime on it. Some people won. Some lost. Only the losers keep bitching ,” the GREED creator bellowed on X. LookOnChain mentioned one individual reportedly purchased the token for 911 SOL, which was approximately $153,000 at the time but was forced to sell for just 309 SOL ($52,000), resulting in a $101,000 loss in under three hours. GREED2: Another rug pull in the waiting? After cashing out from GREED, Portnoy then converted his profits into another meme coin, JAILSTOOL, which he has since promoted. According to Dexscreener data , GREED’s price crashed from $0.03 to below $0.003, a decline of over 90%. Fending off cries from the community, Portnoy quickly launched a second version of the token, GREED2. “Just launched GREED2,” he announced on X. “Don’t invest in this collectible coin with more than you can afford to lose. It’ll be volatile.” The token initially surged to a market capitalization of $28 million, but its value quickly fell below $375,000, according to pump.fun data . The cycle of rapid launches and crashes has angered the crypto family, with one X user commenting, “ Dave Portnoy launched 2 more rugs last night, as if $JAILSTOOL and $LIBRA weren’t bad enough. The guy is worth $200M but will still f*ck over the little guy for an extra $100k .” Cryptopolitan Academy: Are You Making These Web3 Resume Mistakes? - Find Out Here
