A popular meme coin that surged to prominence in late September—making some investors millions in the process—had spent the last few weeks in an apparent death spiral as traders moved on to other coins. But now it's up 200% on the day after top crypto exchange Binance took notice.

The Solana-based Moo Deng (MOODENG) has tripled in price over the last 24 hours, per data from CoinGecko, rising to a current price of about $0.23 after hovering below the $0.08 mark in recent days.

The spike commenced immediately after Binance, the world's biggest crypto exchange, announced it was listing the token for futures traders. The listing allows traders to buy contracts that bet on the future price of Moo Deng, a token inspired by a baby pygmy hippopotamus that went viral on the internet last month.

Moo Deng peaked at a September 28 high above $0.33, when Moo-mania was gripping crypto degen traders. But it started losing steam soon thereafter as traders flocked to other rising coins (like GOAT), and was down 78% from its peak price as of Thursday.

Now, Moo Deng is only about 30% below its all-time high price.

Meme coins and tokens are highly volatile cryptocurrencies based on internet jokes, memes, public figures, and more. They can shoot up in value very quickly, but just as rapidly disappear—only to be replaced by the next craze.

Crypto traders often want to get a hold of the hottest meme coins early because of their quick price gains, and those who play the market right stand to potentially cash in huge on a winner. One early buyer of Moo Deng turned an $800 investment into $7.5 million as of late September, but it would have been worth significantly less of late if they didn't sell anything.

But there's one key issue for meme coin whales who want to pull out: liquidity.

It can be very hard to cash out of the investments, because other traders keep an eye on big holders' wallets. When they start moving the coins or tokens to sell, others can follow suit, leading to a market crash—since nobody wants to be left holding a worthless bag.

Edited by Andrew Hayward