Memecoin Punch rises 12,000% in a week

You probably saw it on some social media channel this week. In Ichikawa, Japan, a baby macaque was abandoned by its mother earlier this month. Because the zoo staff didn’t want the young monkey to die of loneliness, they gave it a plush toy monkey from Ikea so it could cling to its fur.

The young monkey took the stuffed animal everywhere in its enclosure, and a new internet star was born. The zookeepers named him Punch.

Punch the Orphan Monkey Clings To Plush Mom After Being Thrown Around by Others pic.twitter.com/orwKCfAbbl

— New York Post (@nypost) February 20, 2026

Crypto followed as it always does and a developer created his own Punch memecoin featuring the image of the young monkey in Japan. Profit after just one week was around 12,000% since the digital currency’s inception.

Here's two of my biggest red flags on $Punch

Let me clarify - the project and project dev is most likely not behind the things I'm warning about here. The project may or may not be a good project. But this is cabal action. Plain and simple.

1. Bubble maps is too perfect. Too… pic.twitter.com/KUfv8eZ7Cm

— The White Whale (@WhiteWhaleLabs) February 19, 2026

Memecoins often make parabolic movements, but this gain is certainly exceptional, leading many to believe the market is being manipulated, just as happened with the ‘penguin’ memecoin earlier this year.

Moo Deng

We had a similar story in 2024. A pygmy hippopotamus in a Thai zoo became an equally huge internet sensation, and back then as well a developer quickly created a memecoin. It rose 500% after the story went viral, but 48 hours later, we saw a sharp drop in the price of the cryptocurrency.

So pay close attention, because if Punch goes as fast as Moo Deng, we’ll likely see a 90% drop from this point on.