"We love you guys and have fun," Tarrio said alongside Nordean in Miami during the launch on February 11. "Invest responsibly. Proud of your coin."
Proud Coin, according to its description, is "intended to function as an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and values of Proud American Patriots." It follows the recent wave of largely worthless cryptocurrencies inspired by internet memes and trends that have been criticized as "pump-and-dump schemes" to enrich the creators and dupe low-level investors.
The coin hit a market capitalization (the value of all Proud Coins in circulation) of $27 million at its peak, only to fall 98 percent to its current market value of $625,000 by the next day.
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Just days before his inauguration, President Donald Trump launched his own meme coin $TRUMP on the Solana blockchain. The price of the cryptocurrency skyrocketed immediately from 18 cents to its peak value of $75. A recent analysis performed by the New York Times, however, found that more than 810,000 cryptocurrency wallets have lost a combined $2 billion from the venture while the Trump family and its partners brought in $100 million in trading fees.
In December 2024, internet star Hailey Welch, better known as "Hawk Tuah Girl," released the $HAWK coin in partnership with sellers in the Cayman Islands. People called the cryptocurrency a scam after the coin quickly hit a market capitalization of $490 million before plummeting more than 90 percent within hours. Soon thereafter, investors filed a lawsuit against the creator for allegedly illegally selling a cryptocurrency not registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Welch was not named as a defendant.
Amid the meme coin criticism, Tarrio tells New Times this coin is not a "Hawk Tuah coin" situation (a rug pull) "by purchasing up the initial supply and using streamflow finance to set the vesting schedules for all tokens distributed for the purposes of the launch."
He says the group funded the initial liquidity and cannot sell the tokens outside of the published vesting schedule.
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"I personally have a 2.5% stake of the token supply, which is locked from selling over a publicly listed and verifiable vesting schedule," he notes.
In a 14-minute @proudofyourcoin X space on Tuesday night, Nordean, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy among other charges for January 6, said the Proud Boys want to make this cryptocurrency a "utility coin" that will help fund new projects, such as podcasts, documentaries, events, and potentially a news and entertainment network. (As part of his presidential pardons, Trump commuted Nordean's sentence to time served).What a wild launch! 🚀
— Proud Coin (@proudofyourcoin) February 12, 2025
We’re focused on bringing more value to the token holders and hodlers.
We’ve locked up the supply.
Looking forward to sharing what’s coming next! Look out for exciting updates!
"It's really important to us to maintain the integrity of our reputation as far as the club, as far as the organization, and entities we are going to be a part of," Nordean said. "So we are not looking to make just a quick buck here. That would be pretty detrimental to everything that we have stood for the past eight years or so."
He added that they created this coin so they do not have to rely on other platforms for crowdsource funding, as these sites have taken down pages associated with the Proud Boys.
“We just don't have a lot of confidence in the centralized banking system," Nordean explained. “As it stands, we have all been dropped by Bank of America, Chase Bank. It’s just a very unreliable environment and so we wanted to create something for ourselves and other people like ourselves to engage in the conversation.”
Initially, Nordean said, they are going to allocate a certain percentage of the coin to people formerly incarcerated on charges related to January 6, which he called "charitable causes." He added that they have "entertained the idea" of sending coins to Trump's and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) leader Elon Musk's public wallets in the future.
"We are really going to try and boost this as much as possible and make this something that kind of allows us to bridge the gap between us and the community" Nordean said. "And you know, cover all these false narratives that have been put over us.
"We are actually some good solid dudes."
Weston native Mason Courson, who was sentenced to five years in prison for beating a cop with a baton on January 6, took to social media to promote the new coin. He joined the Proud Boys after he was pardoned and released from prison.
WE HAVE JUST LAUNCHED OUR PROUD COIN! #POYC https://t.co/fwdR6JxhLP
— Mason Courson (@realMason17) February 12, 2025
