A little-known memer named BuzzlamicJihad launched an illegal” group acquisition” of layer-1 bitcoin Aptos, and two weeks after Aptos Labs founder and CEO Mo Shaikh stepped down, it’s suddenly catching on—and fueling a large amount wave.
Aptos ( APT ) has spiked 17 % over the past 24 hours to a current price of$ 6.45, according to CoinGecko, making the token the third-biggest gainer in the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap during that span. The regular maximum rate of$ 6.57 is the highest level since February 2.
There doesn’t seem to be much to the neighborhood acquisition, or CTO, away from a major boost in vibes, interest, and memes. ” Aptos lookin’ great around” has become the video message of the day as bitcoin degens turn to buying up an established layer-1 cryptocurrency local key, rather than aping into oft-ephemeral joke coins.
When a group of shareholders takes over a task, a CTO occurs. Due to the fact that video gold deployers frequently abandoned their creations moments after they were launched, the idea gained popularity in the bitcoin trenches. In this case, however, it is a layer-1 system, hardly a joke gold, and the Aptos group hasn’t abandoned anything—so it’s everything but a typical example.
It’s gotten to the point where I can type aptos while my eyes closed.
— � � ( 🌐/acc ) ( @BuzzlamicJihad ) February 18, 2025
In October 2024, BuzzlamicJihad first published a post about Aptos on X, claiming that Layer-1 network Sui‘s contracts were simpler to write for the chain.
By December, BuzzlamicJihad had transformed into a full Aptos bull, boasting that it would soon flip XRP and that it hoped that the chain would have more stablecoin supply than all other chains combined by the year 2025.
Once it became clear that co-founder Avery Ching would take over the position of CEO, Shaikh left Aptos on December 19 and the now-CTO lead announced that it had marked the bottom of the company. He quickly began to make claims that Aptos was” not priced in,” which he repeated at least seven times throughout January.
Aptos Labs did not immediately respond to ‘s request for comment. That said, it appears that Ching has acknowledged the “looking good here” meme, and called BuzzlamicJihad the GOAT, or greatest of all time.
BuzzlamicJihad has slowly been building his meme-driven CTO narrative, popularizing the” Aptos looking good here” phrase. In the process of spreading the meme, the CTO lead has annoyed some people in which they simply question:” Sidelined”? This suggests that people are only mad because they don’t actually benefit from the Aptos pump.
The crypto community and some notable influencers have cooled off over the past 24 hours, giving the impression that Aptos actually looks good here, despite being down 68 % from its all-time high.
Now, the vibes on Aptos are similar to those of the well-known Ethereum NFT project Milady Maker in that anyone who walks into the community is thrown layers of irony and in-jokes.
The incredible Aptos team deserves praise. With the exception of @BuzzlamicJihad, Apollos is a mission for itself.
— avery. apt � � ( @Avery Ching ) February 19, 2025
When asked in the Aptos CTO Telegram channel if it could interview the team, one person responded,” There is no team, I love you”, in reference to a classic Milady meme. Another said,” It’s not a meme, it’s a movement”, while someone else responded,” Kill yourself”.
” ]We are ] just some lads with a dream, following Buzz to infinity and beyond”, Telegram chat admin Stef told of BuzzlamicJihad, whose X profile picture features ‘s Buzz Lightyear. ” As]natural ] as it gets”.
Although unofficial, the rebrand is comparable to when Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, welcomed the Milady community in January. Although it had no direct impact on the network’s technical prowess, some members of the community were pleased that it had rekindled the chain’s deteriorating sentiments. This caused some crypto experts to refer to it as a “wartime mode” for the Ethereum creator.
People in the Telegram chat are also sharing information about the Aptos network among themselves in addition to the memes. Specifically, the chat is filled with people teaching each other how to bridge to Aptos, and shilling tokens on the Emojicoin. fun protocol—essentially a launchpad like Solana’s Pump. fun, but all of the meme coins are emojis. The largest token by market cap on Emojicoin. fun is Red Envelope at$ 13.8 million, as of this writing.
The Aptos community takeover is being represented by the globe emoji with a military helmet as the symbol for the Aptos trenches. And just like the Ethereum vibe shift, some are proclaiming that it is now “wartime mode” for Aptos, as well.
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