MEME Coin WATER Raises $41 Million in 5 Minutes: Same Team Behind BEER, Are the "German Prince" and Gotbit Joining Forces to Cash Out Again?
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MEME Coin WATER Raises $41 Million in 5 Minutes: Same Team Behind BEER, Are the "German Prince" and Gotbit Joining Forces to Cash Out Again?
On June 21, a meme coin named WATER Coin raised over $41 million during its presale phase, becoming the largest meme coin presale to date.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Frank, PANews
Despite recent market downturns, some individuals are still making massive gains from MEME coins.
On June 21, a MEME coin called WATER Coin raised over $41 million during its presale phase alone. Within one minute of the presale launch, it raised 200,000 SOL; within five minutes, that figure reached 300,000 SOL—worth approximately $41 million—making it the largest MEME coin presale to date, with over 26,000 wallet addresses participating. On June 24, the WATER token launched on Solana and briefly surpassed a $1 billion market cap. For a newly launched project without clear backing, achieving such funding is dramatic. PANews conducted an in-depth analysis of this project and found that the surge in WATER’s popularity was no accident.
The notorious "German Prince" is the mastermind behind it
According to PANews' investigation, the team behind WATER is the same group that previously orchestrated BEER, a popular MEME token on Solana.
BEER is a beer-themed MEME token that raised nearly 5 million USD worth of 30,000 SOL during its presale on May 20. After listing, BEER's price skyrocketed, reaching up to 30x its initial value, with a peak market cap of $500 million. According to online leaks, the team behind BEER includes Marcus Prinz von Anhalt (commonly known as Prinz Markus), a German brewery businessman. Prinz Markus is a well-known German entrepreneur who also operates multiple nightclubs and brothels. He gained public attention for his lavish lifestyle. Originally named Marcus Prinz von Anhalt, he spent millions of dollars in 2006 to be adopted by a prince's wife, thereby legally changing his name to Marcus Prinz von Anhalt—translated as Prince Marcus of Anhalt. Since then, Prinz Markus has frequently referred to himself as the "German Prince" in media appearances. In 2014, he was sentenced to four years in prison for tax evasion and fraud and has faced allegations related to money laundering, tax fraud, and human trafficking.
From Prinz Markus’s social media activity, it appears he has recently become enthusiastic about investing in cryptocurrency. After launching BEER, he actively promoted and endorsed the token multiple times. Currently, Prinz Markus has 7.74 million Instagram followers, and prizes associated with BEER’s token-holding campaigns—such as CYBERTRUCK giveaways, private jet trips, and free beer supplies—have all been showcased on his social platforms. However, Prinz Markus does not have a positive reputation; some users directly label him a scammer on social media.
According to user reports, another co-founder of BEER is German entrepreneur Ben Bilski, a former professional swimmer who won multiple national championships in Germany. After retiring, he launched several tech startups, including NAGA Group AG—one of Europe’s highest-valued fintech companies. Bilski stepped down as CEO of NAGA Group AG in March this year. Public records indicate that Ben Bilski is also passionate about cryptocurrency investments.
In addition to these two German entrepreneurs, a hedge fund named Gotbit is also involved in operating BEER. Gotbit explicitly stated on Twitter that it had partnered with BEER and assisted in market capitalization management. Gotbit is a hedge fund specializing in boosting token valuations. Previously, on-chain investigator ZachXBT warned on X (formerly Twitter): "I would be cautious about any project collaborating with market maker Gotbit Hedge Fund, as a leaked document reveals serious issues with their services. The document claims Gotbit’s strategy involves inflating prices up to 10x within the first few minutes of price discovery to create FOMO and absorb maximum buying power before selling off all tokens at the peak." BEER’s price chart appears consistent with this manipulation strategy.
A Unique Marketing Strategy
Unlike many other MEME coins, BEER’s primary marketing channels are not on Twitter but on Instagram and Telegram, targeting mainly users from Germany and Dubai. Additionally, BEER introduced innovative mechanics beyond standard presales, including various token-holder reward programs and milestone-based incentives. Rewards include a two-person private jet trip to the Munich Beer Festival, annual beer supply, a Tesla Cybertruck, and custom-brewed personalized beer.
After its launch, WATER adopted a similar marketing approach. WATER’s token-holder rewards include cruises and Maldives vacations. Furthermore, WATER mimicked water’s properties in its token design, naming staking and token burning as “freezing” and “evaporation,” respectively.
Moreover, the BEER team effectively leveraged its influence on Instagram to reach users unfamiliar with cryptocurrency, publishing tutorials on how to register wallets and purchase BEER tokens from scratch. Athlete absolut_lukas, who has 66,000 Instagram followers, commented on and shared the project multiple times. A Twitter user @Shayaniii revealed, “They contacted many influencers (not just those in crypto) and spread the word like wildfire—even involving major rappers like Luciano.” Of course, the biggest promotional force remains Prinz Markus himself, who posted multiple videos promoting the token on Instagram.
Additionally, the BEER community’s Telegram channel has amassed 2 million subscribers.
Team Continuously Dumps Tokens, On-Chain Snipers Suffer Heavy Losses
Although BEER saw significant early gains, its price plummeted as the team repeatedly sold off holdings. As of June 25, BEER’s price had dropped more than 90% from its peak, and its market cap fell back to around $50 million. According to LookonChain monitoring, affiliated addresses linked to the BEER team conducted multiple sell-offs after price surges, accumulating over $3 million in sales. In response, BEER’s official team stated in its Telegram group: “On-chain analysis shows that 95% of quotas were fully sold during recent panic selling. This is a very positive signal for the project, and we expect subsequent selling pressure to significantly decrease.”
Perhaps inspired by the immense wealth-generating potential of MEME coins, WATER achieved unexpected results upon launch. It raised $41 million in just five minutes—far exceeding its initial hard cap of 55,500 SOL. Ultimately, WATER increased its hard cap to 250,000 SOL (approximately $32.5 million) and refunded 11,000 SOL to bot accounts that participated in the presale.
After listing, WATER surged nearly 10x in a short time before crashing within hours. As of June 25, its price hit a low of $0.00097, falling below its opening price of $0.0016.
Furthermore, the development team appears to have repeated the insider trading ("rat warehouse") tactics used with BEER. According to lookonchain, the team transferred 844 million WATER tokens to 11 wallets that did not participate in the presale. PANews’ investigation found that these 11 wallets have already sold WATER tokens worth $2.36 million and continue to gradually dump the remaining $1.75 million worth of tokens.
An on-chain sniper suffered heavy losses during this launch. A sniper with a wallet address starting with 63KCv spent 15,000 SOL (worth about $1.9 million) buying WATER immediately after launch but sold less than ten minutes later, recovering only 9,306 SOL (worth $1.2 million)—a loss of $710,000.
For the BEER team, this presale outcome far exceeded expectations. However, the market trajectory seems unlikely to repeat BEER’s path, and their habitual insider trading strategy appears to be exhausting its effectiveness. It remains to be seen how many investors will still be willing to buy into the next beverage-themed MEME coin.
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