The owner of the squirrel who inspired the PNUT memecoin claims that Binance and many other organizations have violated intellectual property rights by using this squirrel's image without permission.
Binance sued for Peanut the Squirrel (PNUT) memecoin copyright
On the morning of 16/12/2024, the Twitter account @Squirrel_Dad12 of Mark Longo, the owner of Peanut the Squirrel, which was burned by the US government in October and has caused an outrage in public opinion since then, said he had sent a warning letter to the Binance exchange, accusing the platform of violating intellectual property rights by listing the PNUT memecoin inspired by the incident.
Peanut is a squirrel raised in New York by Mark Longo, who has set up a separate Instagram account to record his daily life. However, at the end of October, the city government decided to cremate the squirrel to prevent rabies.
The incident has sparked outrage in the US public, attracting the attention of celebrities like Elon Musk and Donald Trump, as well as tarnishing the image of the incumbent government in the context of the 2024 presidential election entering a critical stage.
The cryptocurrency community quickly "caught the trend" of the incident and created a memecoin called Peanut the Squirrel (PNUT) on Solana, with a market capitalization of up to $50 million just hours after its launch. By mid-November, many major exchanges had listed PNUT, most notably Binance, contributing to the increase in the memecoin's market capitalization to nearly $2.5 billion, but it has clearly plummeted since then to a market capitalization of $1.1 billion.
Fluctuations in the market capitalization of the PNUT memecoin. Source: CoinGecko (16/12/2024)
In his statement, Mark Longo said he had discovered Binance's copyright infringement by using the "Peanut the Squirrel", "PNUT" brand, and the image of the squirrel wearing a hat taken from the squirrel's Instagram account. Therefore, Longo requested Binance to stop all copyright infringement and contact the owner before 31/12 to resolve the case.
The squirrel's owner stated that he has registered the trademark since 2017 and is confident that he will be protected by the US Copyright Law for his rights.
Mark Longo also said he would soon send additional warnings to other organizations with similar infringing behavior. The list of centralized exchanges (CEX) currently listing PNUT also includes OKX, Bitget, HTX, Gate.io, Bybit,...
However, many opinions in the cryptocurrency community believe that this is just a ploy to use legal pressure to "extort money" from Binance, as Mark Longo himself recently created a memecoin inspired by the squirrel called JUSTICE FOR PEANUT (JFP), but the price has plummeted after its launch and it currently has a market capitalization of only $3 million.
Fluctuations in the market capitalization of the JFP memecoin. Source: CoinGecko (16/12/2024)
The latest incident also has many similarities to the case where the artist behind the Chill guy meme caused a storm on TikTok and demanded copyright on the CHILLGUY memecoin at the end of November.
Compiled by Coin68
