Robinhood Chain Sees $70M JINQIAN Token Surge Amid Short-Squeeze Narrative

A stock token named JINQIAN and its underlying Nasdaq-listed company FAMI have surged on the Robinhood Chain, sparking a short-squeeze narrative reminiscent of GameStop's rise in January 2021.

JINQIAN, which translates to 'money' in Chinese, has reached a market capitalization of over $70 million in just one hour, while its underlying stock FAMI saw a 300% surge in price on Nasdaq, briefly reaching near $0.40.

The story began when crypto trader Rune tweeted that he spent approximately $1.8 million to acquire 37.4% of a low-market-cap Nasdaq-listed company via OTC, planning to tokenize the stock and launch a paired meme coin to trigger a short squeeze.

However, upon closer inspection, it appears that the FAMI token on-chain was deployed by someone else who borrowed Rune's idea, and not by him directly. Moreover, the deployer minted 14,223,400 tokens from the zero address to themselves, which is suspiciously close to the 37.43 million shares of common stock in Farmmi.

The deployment of the token also raises questions about its legitimacy, as Robinhood has a hard requirement for its stock tokens, requiring that only official contract addresses are recognized.