On the afternoon of February 18, the CZs dog narrative, which had been somewhat dormant, suddenly became active. Around 6 pm, a new $BROCCOLI was issued, which rose rapidly in a short period of time, reaching a market value of 50 M in an hour and a half, and is currently stable at around 10 M. The popularity of this token is not only related to the Renaissance, but also closely related to the recent $LIBRA and charity aid.
Background: CZ’s “Broccoli Night” and Meme Coin Carnival
After CZ announced on February 13 that his pet dog was named Broccoli, dozens of meme coin projects with the same name quickly emerged on BNB Chain, with a market value of over $400 million. This naming was not only due to its similar pronunciation to Blockchain, but also due to the communitys fanatical pursuit of CZs personal influence, which led to the speculative spectacle of Broccoli Night. However, behind this carnival, there are hidden whales operating, community division and trust crisis.
Charity activities and CZ’s entry: from the Argentine president’s coin issuance to the “love airdrop”
The cause of the incident can be traced back to the coin issuance incident of Argentine President Milei. A large number of cryptocurrency investors suffered huge losses, so a college student KOL spontaneously launched a $50,000 charity dinner assistance plan on BNB Chain to compensate all victims (college students are given priority). CZ then expressed his support for the project, transferred 150 BNB (about $100,000) to the charity address disclosed by the KOL, and cooperated to launch the BNBCHAIN stablecoin love airdrop exclusively for $LIBRA losers. However, this good deed unexpectedly became the fuse for the giant whales manipulation - the donation address announced by CZ was regarded as an official endorsement signal by speculators, triggering a new round of Meme coin speculation.
After the CZ donation address was announced, according to Ai Yis monitoring, an investor who made a profit of $460,000 on BROCCOLI (0x6d5...714) created a new token BROCCOLI (0xa14...aab) and transferred 150 BNB and the token to CZs donation address. The specific operations include: creating a new token 13 minutes after CZ announced the donation address, and transferring 80% of the token supply (about 797 million) to CZs address 2 minutes later, while clearing all remaining tokens with a tail number of 714, and transferring the profitable 150 BNB to CZs address again. The actual market value of the new token is about 7 million US dollars, which is 20% of the displayed market value. At present, the investor holds 10.62 million tokens as a developer address and is the largest holder of the token.
After the new token dev with the last number aab backstabbed the old token 714 with the last number, the whales in the 714 community also started to fight back, transferring 10 million 714 tokens to CZs address at 19:50 (UTC+8) that night. The market value of 714 tokens also rose from 96M USD to 126M USD in a short period of time, but then fell back and is currently stable at around 70M USD. This behavior is not only a protest of the community against the new token, but also exposes the nature of market value management in the Meme coin ecosystem that relies on the game of whales.
On the morning of the 19th, CZ tweeted that the address he donated received more BNB than he donated, and there were more other tokens. He would not leave a penny, and most likely donated it to those who lost money on TST or some Broccolis. He emphasized, This is not an endorsement of any token, dont over-interpret this.
Although CZ has repeatedly emphasized that no Meme coins have been issued, and although after the Broccoli War, CZ once said that in the process of diverting traffic to BNB Chain, due to the lack of understanding of the meme issuance process and community operations, many retail investors have been negatively affected, and he expressed his deep regret for this, and promised to improve the performance of BNB Chain and formulate Meme coin incentive policies. However, the disclosure of his social media dynamics and donation addresses objectively provided speculators with hype materials. There are more than 100 tokens with the same name BROCCOLI on BNB Chain, and Binance Web3 Wallet even listed the top four projects by market value in the CZs Dog column on the first day (currently closed), which also highlights the platforms acquiescence to traffic dividends.
In addition, in this incident, whales harvested retail investors through information asymmetry, liquidity manipulation and community sentiment. The so-called decentralized community consensus became a capital game, which also highlighted the poison refining field nature of Meme coin.
The Broccoli War is not only a microcosm of Meme coin speculation, but also reveals the fragility of the cryptocurrency market in the frenzy - when charity becomes a hot spot for speculation and when community consensus becomes a bargaining chip for whales, the industry urgently needs to build a healthier ecological foundation from the technical, governance and regulatory levels. When you try to make money quickly, you often lose money. When you donate money, you get more in return. This is CZs sentiment in his tweet in response to the donation incident. CZs speech and BNB Chains upgrade commitment may be the starting point, but real change still needs time to verify.
