A $575 Investment in a Shiba-Inspired Token Surged to $1.17 Million in Just 5 Days

The memecoin season continues to yield life-changing trades for those willing to take risks. An anonymous investor bought 2.79 billion ASTEROID tokens, an Ethereum-based memecoin dubbed 'First Shiba In Space,' for $575 on April 17. The tokens were then sold for 503 ETH, worth approximately $1.17 million, according to on-chain tracker Lookonchain, generating a return of over 2,000x in just five days. ASTEROID 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, with the design later flying on the Polaris Dawn mission as the crew's zero-gravity indicator. Before her passing, Perrotto had written down eight questions for Elon Musk, including one about making Asteroid the official SpaceX mascot. After her mother shared the list publicly and it went viral, Musk responded with an 'ok,' which sparked the token's surge. The token's market cap rapidly grew from around $50,000 to over $20 million after Musk's response and eventually exceeded $100 million 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.