Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )
Author: Golem ( @web3_golem )
At 12:18 on February 2, a meme project called PAIN launched a 48-hour pre-sale fundraising on the X platform. Users will receive PAIN tokens after the pre-sale ends based on the proportion of their contributed SOL to the total raised SOL.
According to official disclosure, as of 12:18 on February 4 (block height 318346069), PAIN has raised a total of 185,976 SOL, equivalent to approximately 37 million US dollars, which is three times the amount raised by SLERF, a popular pre-sale meme project in 2024. Interestingly, although PAIN gave players enough time to react, it was strange that the Chinese community rarely promoted or mentioned it during the pre-sale period.
At present, PAIN has not distributed tokens. If it is really a golden dog, there is still a chance to get on board in the early stage. In this article, Odaily Planet Daily sorted out the meme history of PAIN and related clues for readers to analyze and judge for themselves.
14-year-old internet meme
PAINs meme image is an old man with a white beard and an awkward but polite smile. His various emoticons have actually been popular on the traditional Internet for 14 years.
The old man in the emoticon is named Andras István Arato, a retired electrical engineer and model from Hungary. In 2011, Arato posted travel photos taken on vacation on social media. Because his overall facial expression and seemingly fake smile have a certain natural magic, a professional photographer invited him to be a model and took more than a hundred photos. These photos immediately became popular on the Internet and were nicknamed Hide the Pain Harold.
Arato might have lived a peaceful life, but in his old age (he was 66 in 2011 and is now 80), God suddenly gave him a chance to work. With the popularity of his meme image, he became the advertising spokesperson for Coca-Cola Hungary in 2019. He also entered the film and television industry. In 2020, he starred in the Hungarian version of the Masked Singer. In January 2025, Arato also served as the host of the Hungarian Athlete of the Year Gala.
Entering the cryptocurrency world with great strides
According to public Internet information, Arato has a personal Facebook account , which has not yet posted or mentioned any content related to PAIN.
However, there is an account on Twitter using the IP of Harold Hiding Pain. The first tweet of this account is a photo of Arato himself with CZ and He Yi at the Dubai Blockchain Week held by Binance in 2024. Although it is not known whether the account has the authorization of the old man himself, it at least proves that Arato has been active in the crypto circle, and these celebrities have potentially endorsed PAIN.
Earlier than this, Arato himself had a connection with the Meme platform Memeland. In August 2019, the old man was invited to participate in an event held in Hong Kong by 9 GAG, the parent company behind Memeland. When the PAIN official pre-sale account released a pre-sale post, the Memeland official account also forwarded it, giving it greater traffic and exposure. Therefore, some community members speculated that this PAIN pre-sale was incubated by Meneland.
80% refund for oversubscription, well-known market makers suspected of involvement
Despite the huge influence of the Harold Hidden Pain meme IP on the Internet and the promotion by crypto celebrities and teams, the final fundraising amount of US$37 million still put great pressure on the upside of the secondary market after the token is released.
On February 5, PAIN’s official Twitter account announced that it would return 80% of the funds raised at launch, and only use the remaining 20% to support the launch, provide liquidity, and pay CEX listing fees (if any). However, this does not include SOL sent using BOT and from various CEXs.
As soon as this news came out, PAIN once again ignited the enthusiasm of the community. It not only became one of the largest fundraising meme projects in history, but also set a record for the amount of refunds. Through refunds, PAINs own valuation has been reduced to about 7.4 million US dollars, which also leaves enough room for performance in the secondary market. At the same time, 80% of the refunded funds will most likely form a buying order for tokens after the opening, so that users who participated in the pre-sale have a chance to obtain more than 3 times the income. Whether from the perspective of traffic effect or potential results, this is a qualified marketing.
Some careful community players also discovered the presence of market makers by analyzing the on-chain payment addresses. After receiving funds from market maker Wintermute and its associated wallets, one address transferred 1,700 SOL to the PAIN fundraising address in 4 transactions.
Wintermute was quite active in Meme coin market making during this cycle, and the Meme coins involved included SLERF, MOODENG, and ACT, and its market making method was often summarized as unlimited pull-ups in the early stage and then falling and oscillating to harvest. But no matter what the style, for a newly born PAIN, the involvement of market makers is still a good thing.
At the same time, according to the statistics of on-chain data analyst @ai_9684 xtpa , after distributing tokens in proportion, the distribution of front-row chips is as follows:
TOP 5: 32747 SOL was transferred, accounting for 17.6% of the total;
TOP 10: 43,242 SOL were transferred, accounting for 23.2% of the total;
TOP 20: 59,299 SOL were transferred, accounting for 31.87% of the total holdings.
Generally speaking, if the TOP 10 Meme coins have less than 30% of their stake, it is considered healthy. However, if there is no team share, there will be a large selling pressure after the token is launched. Based on the above analysis, the release of PAIN should be a long-planned and rigorous plan involving multiple parties, rather than a pure community project. The project party has won the favor of players who participated in the pre-sale by returning 80% of the funds, but whether it will usher in a pour after the opening is still unknown.
NO PAI N , NO GAIN.
