“I’m sitting here going, ‘What the hell has just happened?’” Anderson, better known by his crypto moniker Mando, told Decrypt.

The absurd tale of the asset in question, a Solana meme coin called “Epik Duck,” has particular resonance in crypto at the current moment—one in which a meme coin frenzy has resuscitated long-sagging enthusiasm within the industry, but also threatened to consume it with a naked form of gambling that typically lacks any pretense of technological progress or utility.