A $575 Investment in Shiba-Themed Token Surges to $1.17 Million in Just 5 Days

The memecoin season continues to yield life-changing trades for those willing to take the risk. An anonymous investor bought 2.79 billion ASTEROID tokens, valued at $575, on April 17 and sold the entire stake for 503 ETH, worth approximately $1.17 million, according to data from Lookonchain. This remarkable trade, which took just five days to complete, resulted in a return of over 2,000x. ASTEROID is an Ethereum-based memecoin that is themed around a Shiba Inu drawing created by Liv Perrotto, a teenage cancer patient who passed away in January 2026 after a five-year battle with the disease. Perrotto had sketched the dog while volunteering for SpaceX's Polaris Dawn ground support team, and the design was later flown on the Polaris Dawn mission in September 2024 as the crew's zero-gravity indicator. Before her passing, Perrotto had written down eight questions she hoped to ask Elon Musk, including whether Asteroid could become SpaceX's official mascot. After her death, her mother shared the list publicly, and media personality Glenn Beck amplified it on April 16, which eventually reached Musk and prompted him to respond with an 'ok' to making Asteroid the official SpaceX mascot. This response sparked a surge in the token's market cap, which rose from approximately $50,000 to over $20 million within hours of Musk's reply and eventually exceeded $100 million in the following days, with over $100 million in 24-hour trading volume. At its peak, the token briefly entered the top 200 cryptocurrencies by market cap and currently trades at $0.0004435 with a market cap of $186.5 million and $24 million in 24-hour volume. Notably, the token lacks formal endorsement from SpaceX, has no licensing arrangement, and has no confirmed involvement from Musk beyond his social media responses.