Contents
TL;DR Summary
- Solana SPL memecoin launched in early November 2024, days after New York state wildlife officials seized and euthanized a pet squirrel named Peanut that had 700k+ Instagram followers
- Created on Pump.fun with standard fair-launch bonding-curve mechanics. Anonymous team, no presale, no team allocation
- Elon Musk and other large accounts amplified the story during the final weeks of the 2024 U.S. election, giving PNUT political momentum alongside its animal-rights framing
- Listed on Binance within roughly two weeks of launch, an unusually fast major-CEX listing. Coinbase, OKX, and Bybit followed
- Hit all-time highs above $2.50 in late November 2024 before bleeding out as the news cycle moved on
- No affiliation with Mark Longo, Peanut's owner, who has publicly objected to use of the squirrel's image and has floated legal action
What is Peanut the Squirrel?
Peanut the Squirrel (PNUT) Tokenomics
The History of Peanut the Squirrel
Peanut was a real pet squirrel. Mark Longo adopted him in 2017 after finding him as an orphaned infant in Connecticut, and ran the @peanut_the_squirrel12 Instagram account, which grew to over 700,000 followers by 2024. Posts were mostly Peanut eating waffles, wearing cowboy hats, and climbing on furniture.
On October 30, 2024, New York state DEC agents executed a search warrant at Longo's Pine City property, seized Peanut and a pet raccoon named Fred, and euthanized both animals, citing rabies concerns after one of the agents was allegedly bitten. The story broke publicly on October 31. By November 1 it was a national news cycle in the final days of the U.S. presidential election. Elon Musk, JD Vance, Donald Trump Jr., and a long list of crypto-adjacent accounts framed the raid as government overreach.
PNUT launched on Pump.fun on or around November 1, 2024 from anonymous developers. It cleared the bonding curve fast, liquidity migrated to Raydium, and within days PNUT was trading multi-hundred-million dollars of daily volume. Binance listed on November 13 — days, not weeks. Coinbase, OKX, and Bybit followed by late November. PNUT's ATH came in the $2.00-2.50 range in late November 2024 before the news cycle rotated and the chart started bleeding. // FACTCHECK: exact ATH and the precise Binance listing date; both should be confirmed against CoinGecko and the Binance listing announcement.
Peanut the Squirrel Community & Culture
The PNUT community mixes three groups: Solana memecoin traders who will rotate through anything with volume, animal-rights-and-anti-government posters who came in through the Peanut story itself, and MAGA-adjacent accounts who adopted the squirrel as a symbol during the final days of the 2024 campaign. The tone swings between earnest tribute ("Justice for Peanut"), absurdist meme content, and straight degen price-chart posting.
The earnest side still shows up — squirrel PFPs, #JusticeForPeanut, occasional fundraising talk. The political framing cooled after the election, and the animal-rights framing weakens every week as the story ages. There is no formal charity, no verified donation address, and no affiliation with Mark Longo. When donation or "partnership" claims circulate, they are almost always unverified. Mark Longo himself has publicly stated he is not associated with any PNUT token.
Market Performance of Peanut the Squirrel (PNUT)
How to Buy PNUT
CEX route: Binance, Coinbase, OKX, and Bybit list PNUT. Open an account, pass KYC, fund it, trade the PNUT/USDT pair. Easiest path. DEX route: install Phantom or Solflare, fund it with SOL, and swap on Jupiter. Jupiter aggregates Raydium, Orca, and Meteora liquidity. Verify the official contract address against a major CEX listing page — PNUT attracted a flood of look-alike tokens during its viral window and some are still in Pump.fun's search results.
USD to PNUT Calculator
How to Store PNUT
PNUT is a Solana SPL token. Any Solana wallet works: Phantom, Solflare, or Backpack. For size, pair the hot wallet with a Ledger. The usual drainer-contract hygiene applies: turn on transaction simulation, ignore random airdrops, and never sign on Telegram or Discord DMs from people claiming to be team or mods.
Risks & Considerations
- Legal overhang. Mark Longo, Peanut's owner, has publicly opposed unauthorized use of the squirrel's image and floated legal action. A successful claim could pressure exchanges to delist
- News-coin decay. PNUT rose on a single story. The story has already cycled out of the news, and there is no second act lined up
- Political framing cuts both ways. MAGA-adjacent tagging drove attention during the 2024 election window and has mostly faded in its absence
- Post-parabolic drawdown risk. Tokens that rip 100x in two weeks typically give most of it back when attention rotates
- Standard Solana memecoin risks: look-alike contracts, phishing, thin liquidity outside the majors
How does Peanut the Squirrel compare to other meme coins?
| Coin | Price | Market Cap | Supply | Key Features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Future of Peanut the Squirrel
PNUT's path is a binary. Either the community manages to turn Peanut into a durable symbol — the Harambe-meme comparison is the often-used template — or it fades with the news cycle that created it.
The bull case: the Harambe comparison is not crazy. Harambe has held cultural weight for close to a decade despite the event being a single news story. PNUT has something Harambe didn't, which is deep liquidity on major exchanges and a native memecoin community that actually trades it. If that audience stays engaged, PNUT can hold a meaningful market cap on nostalgia alone.
The bear case is that Harambe is the exception, not the rule. Most news-coin launches bleed for 12-18 months post-peak and never recover. The Longo legal threat is real and could accelerate delistings. Any successful pivot almost certainly requires either an animal-rescue partnership (which needs Longo's cooperation, which does not currently exist) or a genuine cultural second act that the community has not yet produced.