After an ironic comment from a Bitcoin critic, the oil memecoin was created and is now surging with the escalation of the war in the Middle East.
The war between Israel and Iran could result in a violent increase in oil prices. This is because one way for the Muslim country to retaliate is to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world's oil production passes. And this is somehow linked to the memecoin market.
According to data from the DEXTools platform, a memecoin called Digital Oil (OIL) rose 400% in value against the dollar between Sunday (22) and this Monday (23). The token was created on the Solana blockchain and is traded on the decentralized exchange Raydium.
At the time of writing this report, OIL has a market capitalization of $2.5 million and a liquidity of $386,000. Additionally, there are just over 12,000 wallets holding some amount of the memecoin.
The cryptocurrency emerged earlier this year after Bitcoin critic economist Peter Schiff made a post on X discussing the price of oil. A follower asked if it wouldn't be a good idea to create a memecoin about digital oil, and the analyst replied, ironically it seems: "Good idea. Digital oil is much easier to create than real oil."
The memecoin has an official website and apparently a profile on X, which took advantage of the rise to stake its claim with irony: "Disappearing with the most geopolitically favored memecoin AND the ONLY currency endorsed by Peter Schiff himself? NOT ME $OIL."