On the afternoon of February 18, the narrative of "CZ's dog" that had been somewhat dormant suddenly became active. Around 6 pm, a new $BROCCOLI token was issued, which quickly surged in price, reaching a market cap of $50 million within an hour and a half, and is currently stabilizing around $10 million. The explosive growth of this token is not only a renaissance, but is also closely related to the recent $LIBRA and "charitable relief" events.
In less than a day, Binance Alpha listed Broccoli (f2b), Broccoli (714), and Broccoli (f3b) in succession. The token with the 714 suffix saw its market cap plummet from around $70 million to a low of $30 million, but then rebounded quickly and is currently at $56.56 million. The trends of the f2b and f3b tokens were similar to the 714 token, with a sharp drop followed by a rebound to their original market value levels.
Event Background: CZ's "Broccoli Night" and the Meme Coin Frenzy
After CZ announced on February 13 that his pet dog's name was "Broccoli", dozens of Meme coin projects with the same name quickly emerged on the BNB Chain, with the market cap once exceeding $400 million. This naming not only resembles the pronunciation of "Blockchain", but also reflects the community's frenetic pursuit of CZ's personal influence, forming the speculative phenomenon of "Broccoli Night".
However, behind this frenzy lies the manipulation of whales, community fragmentation, and a crisis of trust.
Charity Activities and CZ's Entry: From the Argentine President's Coin Issuance Incident to the "Love Airdrop"
The origin of the incident can be traced back to the Argentine President Milei's coin issuance event, where a large number of crypto investors suffered significant losses. A university student KOL then spontaneously initiated a $50,000 charity dinner assistance plan on the BNB Chain, offering compensation to all victims (with priority for university students).
Subsequently, CZ expressed his support for this project, transferring 150 BNB (about $100,000) to the public charity address of the KOL, and jointly launched the "BNBCHAIN Stablecoin Love Airdrop" exclusively for $LIBRA loss victims.
However, this act of charity unexpectedly became the "fuse" for whale manipulation - the donation address published by CZ was seen by speculators as an "official endorsement signal", triggering a new round of Meme coin speculation.
After CZ's donation address was made public, according to Ai Shi's monitoring, an investor who made $460,000 in profits on BROCCOLI (0x6d5...714) created a new token BROCCOLI (0xa14...aab) and transferred 150 BNB and this token to CZ's donation address.
The specific operations include: establishing a new token 13 minutes after CZ announced the donation address, and transferring 80% of the token supply (about 797 million tokens) to CZ's address within 2 minutes, while simultaneously liquidating all the remaining tokens with the 714 suffix, and transferring the 150 BNB in profits back to CZ's address.
The actual market value of this new token is about $7 million, which is 20% of the displayed market value. Currently, this investor, as the developer address, holds 10.62 million tokens, making them the largest holder of the token.
After the new token with the aab suffix betrayed the old token with the 714 suffix, the whales in the 714 community also began to retaliate. At around 19:50 (UTC+8) on the same evening, they transferred 10 million 714 tokens to CZ's address, causing the 714 token's market value to surge from $96 million to $126 million in a short period of time, but it later fell back and is currently stabilizing around $70 million. This action was both a protest by the community against the new token and an exposure of the essence of "market value management" in the Meme coin ecosystem, which relies on the power struggle of whales.
On the morning of the 19th, CZ tweeted that the BNB received by the donation address was more than he had donated, and there were also more other tokens. He said he would not keep a single penny, and would most likely donate it to those who suffered losses on TST or some Broccolis. He emphasized that "this is not an endorsement of any token, do not over-interpret this."
Broccoli Listed on Binance Alpha
On the afternoon of the 19th, Binance Alpha successively launched Broccoli (f2b), Broccoli (714), and Broccoli (f3b). After that, the market capitalization of tokens ending with "aab" fell from $12 million to around $5 million. The 3 selected tokens did not experience a significant increase, but instead first plummeted and then rebounded to their original market value levels.
It seems that even with official recognition, the "orthodox" side did not see a big surge, and the "grassroots" side did not go to zero. After experiencing a series of intense "pet-rearing" and whale infighting, the narrative's credibility has been largely depleted.
Although CZ has repeatedly emphasized that "no Meme coins have been issued," after the "Broccoli War," CZ once posted that during the process of driving traffic to the BNB Chain, due to a lack of understanding of the meme issuance process and community operations, many retail investors were negatively impacted, for which he expressed deep apologies and promised to improve the efficiency of the BNB Chain and formulate a Meme coin incentive policy.
However, the openness of his social media activities and donation addresses has objectively provided speculative materials for investors. There are more than a hundred "BROCCOLI" tokens on the BNB Chain, and Binance's Web3 wallet even listed the top 4 projects in a dedicated "CZ's Dog" column on the first day (which has since been closed), also highlighting the platform's tacit approval of traffic dividends.
Furthermore, in this incident, whales harvested retail investors through information asymmetry, liquidity manipulation, and community sentiment, and the so-called "decentralized community consensus" has become a capital game, also revealing the "pet-rearing arena" nature of Meme coins.
The "Broccoli War" not only epitomizes the speculation of Meme coins, but also exposes the fragility of the cryptocurrency market in its frenzy - when charity becomes a speculative hotspot, and community consensus becomes a bargaining chip for whales, the industry urgently needs to build a healthier ecological foundation from the perspectives of technology, governance, and regulation. "When you try to make quick money, you often lose. When you donate money, you get more in return." This is CZ's reflection in response to the donation event. CZ's remarks and BNB Chain's upgrade commitments may be a starting point, but real change still needs time to be validated.
