Dave Portnoy's GREED Meme Coin Rug Pull Scandal

Overview

Dave Portnoy's GREED Meme Coin Rug Pull Scandal, also known as $GREED Rug Pull Controversy or $GREED2 Meme Coin Backlash, refers to a Solana blockchain meme coin that gained viral attention following its endorsement by Dave Portnoy, founder of the Barstool Sports entertainment website, in mid-February 2025. Portney had previously promoted Jailstool, a parody cryptocurrency asking for Portnoy to be behind bars that garnered virality online. $GREED and $GREED2 reached a market cap that exceeded $47 million and $28 million, respectively, a few days after its launch, sparking debates on X / Twitter and Reddit accusing Portnoy of rug pulling the original coin and releasing his own version, only to sell it shortly after.

Background

On February 18th, 2025, Dave Portnoy launched his $GREED meme coin via X,^[1] writing that the entire ecosystem meme coin universe "is Greed and nothing else." He also wrote that people in this market should "dump on each other peasants but don’t complain to me if you lose money. You are all greedy. At least admit it." The post (seen below) amassed more than 3 million views and 3,300 likes in a day.

Developments

Market Performance

At its peak, according to Coin Market Cap,^[2] the GREED token reached a roughly $47 million market cap^[3] before crashing to around $3 million, making a drop of over 90 percent following Portnoy’s sales of the coin, as of February 19th, 2025.

Shortly after GREED's collapse, Portnoy launched another token, GREED2,^[6] retaining 26.8 percent of its supply.^[4][11] According to Coinspeaker, the cryptocurrency reached a market value above $28 million,^[5] but "as interest waned, it fell below $710,000, again leaving investors with heavy losses."

Dave Portnoy's GREED Rug Pull

On February 18th, 2025, Dave Portnoy allegedly sold his entire holding, causing the price of GREED to plummet immensely, which prompted questions about market manipulation and "the ethics of holding a significant portion of the token’s supply," as Coin Stats explained following accusations of a rug pull.^[7]

In a leaked X Spaces livestreamed by Dave Portnoy and shared by X user @icopytrade^[8] on February 18th, 2025, he claimed that he "thought about rug pulling" and that he "can do whatever" he wants in regards to his meme coin. The video amassed more than 320 views in a day.

Online Presence

Dave Portnoy’s GREED and GREED2 meme coins sparked outrage on social media in mid-February 2025 as buyers of the tokens complained about his unethical approach while promoting the crypto coins, accusing him of doing a rug pull.

For example, on February 18th, 2025, X^[9] user @buyerofponzi asked for his followers to buy Jailstool as a form of protest to devalue Portnoy's meme coins. The tweet (seen below) received over 2 million views and 1,700 likes in a day.

Portnoy's meme coins controversy also sparked several debates on Reddit, as Redditor u/Illperformance6969^[10] uploaded a news article about the topic on February 19th, 2025, titled "Barstool Founder Launches and Dumps GREED Meme Coin in Just 1 Hour." The post (seen below) amassed roughly 130 upvotes and 50 comments in a few hours.

Search Interest

External References