A weeks-long feud between the team behind a surging meme coin and the creator of the cartoon that inspired it appeared to reach a happy conclusion late Thursday—until it was revealed that the supposed armistice was fake news spread by a hacker, predictably causing the token to dump in the process.

Could a sentence be more crypto than that?

On Thursday evening, an X (formerly known as Twitter) account belonging to Philip Banks, creator of the beloved “Just a Chill Guy” meme, announced that he had officially given his blessing for the soaring, Solana-based CHILLGUY meme coin to license his intellectual property.

"Some members of CHILLGUY token reached out to me and we had a long discussion," the post read. "They have been really supportive and nice, and we reached an agreement. I've decided to provide licensing and IP rights to the CHILLGUY token and team."

Previously, Banks had threatened the creators of the token—which leveraged the sweatshirt-wearing dog character to climb to a value in excess of $400 million—with legal action. 

Unsurprisingly, CHILLGUY’s value immediately rocketed over 22% on news of the supposed peace treaty. In the past, licensing agreements between meme coins and their unauthorized inspirations have caused those tokens to skyrocket. After all, who wants a (fairly compelling) trademark infringement suit hanging over the fundamental premise of their project?

But in short order, it became clear that the detente was a hoax. Banks’ account soon posted again, and again, and again—claiming that the crypto-skeptical illustrator had set up a Solana wallet, and was now launching his own “official” Chill Guy meme coin via Pump.fun.

That raised suspicions among traders. The CHILLGUY meme coin’s Twitter account then entered the chat, posting that the token’s team was “taken by surprise” by Banks’ announcement, further suggesting that the deal was not actually real.

As quickly as CHILLGUY had soared, it fell crashing back to Earth. Within 30 minutes, the token collapsed over 25%, to $0.33. It has since fallen a further 10%, to under $0.30 at writing. 

In a bizarre twist, once the token started tanking, Banks’ Twitter account began posting anti-crypto proclamations condemning the hack—perhaps part of an effort to profit from longing and then shorting the asset.

“Chill Guy’s image and rights will NEVER be involved in crypto,” one post read. “Spreading hate, attacking my family, committing crimes to profit off my art…. After today’s events, I’m going to be sending takedown requests, and preparing to battle these crypto platforms legally.” 

But even those posts were not made by Banks himself, the artist said in a subsequent Instagram post, and they’ve since been removed along with all of the other apparently fraudulent missives.

Some things in crypto never change. But at least hackers appear to be working on their method acting skills.

Edited by Andrew Hayward