How CZ’s Dog Turned One Memecoin Dev Into a Millionaire—And Left Everyone Else Holding the Bag

Crypto’s latest cautionary tale starts with a billionaire’s pet and ends with retail traders getting rekt. Again.

When Binance founder Changpeng Zhao tweeted a photo of his Shiba Inu, the memecoin it inspired mooned overnight—but only the creator cashed out at the top. Everyone else? Left choking on the dust of another pump-and-dump.

Lesson learned: In crypto, the house always wins. Especially when the house has insider access to a 140-character casino.

The Broccoli Craze Begins

It all started when CZ posted on X that he would soon reveal the name and photo of his dog—well aware of the frenzy it would ignite among memecoin creators. While many crypto influencers have seen their pets turned into memecoins without consent, CZ leaned into the chaos, teasing traders about which Broccoli-themed token would become the “official” one, though he promised he wouldn’t launch his own.

At 11:12 AM New York time, CZ revealed his Belgian Malinois was named “Broccoli.” He reiterated that he wouldn’t release an official Broccoli token but hinted he might trade some community-created ones—and that BNB Foundation could give a nudge to successful projects.

Tokens Flood the Market—And Quickly Collapse

Just minutes after CZ’s post, dozens of BROCCOLI tokens popped up across BNB Chain and Solana. Early trading saw these tokens briefly touch billion-dollar market caps as traders scrambled to back a winner. But with no clear front-runner, the gains evaporated almost instantly, leaving devastation in their wake.

This rapid rise and fall highlighted the extreme dangers of the unregulated, insider-dominated memecoin market, where “anything goes” and few walk away unscathed.

Consider the case of wallet 0x392eb, which perfectly played the madness. Spending less than $1,000, it quickly minted the “CZ’s Dog (Broccoli)” token, awarding itself over 110 million units. Mere minutes later, the wallet began offloading its stash.

Within just 20 minutes, 0x392eb had dumped all its tokens, raking in $6.5 million in profits. The sell-off crushed incoming buyers who hoped the token would keep rising.

By the numbers: over 30,000 users engaged in nearly 100,000 transactions on Thursday. A few early movers made fortunes. Yet by the time you reached the 100th most profitable trader, the gains shrank to around $20,000—a sharp contrast to the millions made by insiders.

Anyone who bought Broccoli during the frenzy’s peak and held onto it is now nursing serious losses. At press time, the token’s market cap hovered around $50 million, far from its early highs.

While 0x392eb cashed out, CZ maintained his stance, posting on X:

“Let the best meme coin in the community win.”
He reiterated that he would not endorse any specific project, implicitly acknowledging that memecoin trading remains a high-risk gamble.

What CZ didn’t mention is just how stacked the odds were against everyday traders. When creators can mint coins, self-allocate huge supplies, and immediately dump on the market, it’s the newcomers—those chasing dreams of quick riches—who fund the insiders’ windfalls.

Other Broccoli-themed tokens that popped up after CZ’s post followed a similar pattern: short-lived spikes, insider profits, and massive losses for the majority.

The Broccoli episode sparked a wave of memes on X mocking those who lost money, as well as deeper reflection on the sorry state of memecoin trading. In an environment with little oversight and no safeguards, the Broccoli debacle serves as yet another painful reminder: in memecoins, the house usually wins, and the players almost always lose.