5 minutes to raise 41 million dollars for MEME coin WATER: BEER same operator, "German Prince" and Gotbit join forces for another harvest?
On June 21, a MEME coin called WATER Coin raised over $41 million during its presale phase, becoming the largest MEME coin presale case to date.Author: Frank, PANews
Although the market has been performing poorly recently, some people are still making a fortune with MEME coins.
On June 21, a MEME coin named WATER Coin raised over $41 million during its presale phase. The project raised 200,000 SOL within one minute of starting the presale, and 300,000 SOL within five minutes, amounting to approximately $41 million, making it the largest MEME coin presale case to date, with over 26,000 wallet addresses participating. On June 24, the WATER token went live on Solana, briefly surpassing a market cap of $1 billion. For a newly launched project without clear backing, achieving such a funding amount is dramatic. PANews conducted an in-depth analysis of this project and found that the popularity of the WATER token was not coincidental.
Notorious "German Prince" Behind the Scenes
According to PANews' investigation, the team behind WATER is the same team that previously operated the popular MEME token BEER on Solana.
The BEER token is a beer-themed MEME coin that raised 30,000 SOL during its presale on May 20, valued at nearly $5 million. After its launch, the price of BEER token skyrocketed, with a peak increase of 30 times, reaching a market cap of up to $500 million. According to online sources, the team behind BEER is led by German businessman Marcus Prinz von Anhalt (commonly known as Prinz Markus), a well-known figure in Germany who operates several nightclubs and brothels. Gaining public attention for his lavish lifestyle, in 2006, he spent millions of dollars to purchase his new name, Marcus Prinz von Anhalt, through adoption by a princess. Since then, Prinz Markus has liked to refer to himself as the "German Prince" in the media. In 2014, he was sentenced to four years in prison for tax evasion and fraud, and has also faced charges of money laundering, tax fraud, and human trafficking.
From Prinz Markus's social media information, it appears he has been keen on investing in the cryptocurrency space in recent years. After the launch of the BEER token, he has actively endorsed it multiple times. Currently, Prinz Markus has 7.74 million followers on Instagram, and the prizes in BEER's token-holding activities, such as a CYBERTRUCK and private jet trips, as well as free beer supplies, have all been showcased on his social media. However, Prinz Markus does not have a good reputation, with some users on social media directly calling him a scammer.
According to online sources, another initiator of BEER is German entrepreneur Ben Bilski, who was previously a professional swimmer and has won multiple German championships. After retiring, he started several ventures in the tech field and founded NAGA Group AG (one of Europe's highest-valued fintech companies). In March of this year, Ben Bilski resigned as CEO of NAGA Group AG, and from public information, he also seems to be keen on cryptocurrency investments.
In addition to the two German entrepreneurs, a hedge fund called Gotbit is also behind the scenes of BEER. Gotbit has explicitly stated on Twitter that it has partnered with BEER and assisted in managing its market cap. Gotbit is a hedge fund that specializes in helping tokens achieve market cap growth. Previously, on the X platform, on-chain detective ZachXBT stated, "I would be cautious about any project that collaborates with market maker Gotbit Hedge Fund, as a leaked report indicates significant issues with the services they provide. Gotbit claimed in this document that its strategy is to push the price up to 10 times in the initial minutes of the price discovery phase to create FOMO and accumulate as much buying power as possible, and then sell all tokens at the subsequent peak." The price curve of BEER seems to align with this operational strategy.
Unique Marketing Tactics
Unlike many MEMEs, the marketing battlefield for the BEER token is not on Twitter, but on Instagram and Telegram. Its main user base comes from Germany and Dubai. Additionally, BEER has designed more gameplay, offering various token-holding reward activities and rewards for surpassing certain market cap thresholds. Rewards include a private jet trip to the Munich Beer Festival, annual beer supplies, a Tesla Cybertruck, and custom-brewed beer.
After its launch, WATER adopted the same marketing strategy. WATER's token-holding rewards include cruises, trips to the Maldives, and more. Furthermore, the design of the WATER token mimics the properties of water, naming staking and token burning as freezing and evaporating.
Moreover, the BEER team fully utilized its influence on Instagram to promote to many users unfamiliar with cryptocurrency, including creating tutorials on how to register a wallet and purchase BEER tokens from scratch. An athlete named absolut_lukas has commented on and shared the project multiple times; this blogger has 66,000 followers on Instagram. A Twitter user named @Shayaniii revealed, "They have reached out to many influencers (not just in cryptocurrency) and spread it like wildfire, even including major rap artists like Luciano." Of course, the biggest boost comes from Prinz Markus himself, who has repeatedly posted videos promoting the token on Instagram.
Additionally, the BEER community has 2 million subscribers on its Telegram channel.
Team Continues to Dump, On-Chain Snipers Suffer Heavy Losses
Although the BEER token experienced exaggerated initial gains, the price plummeted due to the team's frequent selling. As of June 25, the price of BEER token had dropped over 90% from its peak, with a market cap falling to around $5 million. According to LookonChain monitoring, the associated addresses of the BEER team sold over $3 million worth of tokens after the price was pushed up. In response, the BEER official stated in the Telegram community, "On-chain analysis shows that 95% of the allocation has been sold during the recent panic. This is a very good signal for the project, and we expect the subsequent selling pressure to significantly decrease."
Perhaps seeing the powerful wealth creation ability of MEME coins, WATER achieved unexpected results upon issuance. It raised $41 million in presale within just 5 minutes, far exceeding its expected hard cap of 55,500 SOL. Ultimately, WATER increased the hard cap to 250,000 SOL (approximately $32.5 million) and refunded 11,000 SOL from bot accounts that participated in the presale.
After its launch, the WATER token briefly surged nearly 10 times, but then plummeted within hours. As of June 25, its price fell to as low as $0.00097, dropping below the issue price of $0.0016. 
Additionally, the development team seems to have replicated the insider trading operations seen with BEER. According to Lookonchain, the development team has transferred 844 million WATER tokens to 11 wallets that did not participate in the presale. PANews' investigation found that these 11 wallets have sold WATER tokens worth $2.36 million and are still holding tokens worth $1.75 million, which are being gradually sold off.
An on-chain sniper suffered heavy losses during this launch. This sniper, with an address starting with 63KCv, spent 15,000 SOL to buy in (worth about $1.9 million) after the launch of WATER, but sold just 10 minutes later, only recovering 9,306 SOL, worth $1.2 million, resulting in a loss of $710,000.
For the BEER team, the results of this presale far exceeded expectations. However, the market trend seems difficult to replicate BEER's path, and the team's usual insider trading strategy has already drained the resources. It remains to be seen how many people will be willing to buy into the next beverage MEME coin issuance.
