The scammers created the meme cryptocurrency STONKS9800 (STONKS), which uses the name and image of the game STONKS-9800: Stock Market Simulator by Ukrainian developer Ruslan «Ternox» Salikov without his permission. He told dev.ua that he has already filed complaints against the meme coin’s developers, but he doesn’t really believe they will act.
The scammers created the meme cryptocurrency STONKS9800 (STONKS), which uses the name and image of the game STONKS-9800: Stock Market Simulator by Ukrainian developer Ruslan «Ternox» Salikov without his permission. He told dev.ua that he has already filed complaints against the meme coin’s developers, but he doesn’t really believe they will act.
«I have a strange question… does anyone know how to sue or something like that? I have nothing to do with this, and my game was used for some kind of crypto scam. Are there any lawyers or something like that? I feel terrible about this,» Salikov wrote from his X game account (Twitter) in early July, commenting on one of the many posts about the STONKS9800 memecoin.
In a comment to dev.ua, he noted that he learned about this cryptocurrency because he was mentioned on X (Twitter) by cryptobros who wrote about memecoin.
«They don’t hide that it’s from the game, and they even leave a link to the game, for which I thank them of course, but seeing these regular AI-generated pictures of your characters is very unpleasant,» said developer STONKS-9800.
STONKS-9800: Stock Market Simulator is a business simulator on the Japanese stock exchange of the 80s and 90s, which has been in early access since July 2023. The memecoin website notes that this game served as inspiration for the SPX6900 cryptocurrency, which was released in August 2023, and is a memecoin to the American S&P 500 stock index.
«SPX6900 is a continuation of the spirit [of the game], a living coin inspired by the design language, tone and irony of STONKS-9800. Where the game offered fiction, the coin became faith. SPX is for waifu traders, chart fans and believers. A new market built on aesthetics and beliefs,» the memecoin’s creators claim.
As noted by a journalist from the gaming publication PC Gamer, who calls STONKS-9800: Stock Market Simulator his personal game of the year, the authors of the site are probably not related to the SPX6900 coin, since the links from the site lead to the STONKS9800 (STONKS) memecoin. Its capitalization is estimated at about $100,000, while the valuation of SPX6900 reaches over $86 million.
Ruslan «Ternox» Salikov told dev.ua that he has already filed DMCA complaints against the domain of the developers of the memecoin STONKS9800, to Cloudflare and X (Twitter), but so far this has not led to any results.
dev.ua has reached out to the developers of the STONKS9800 memecoin for comment. We will update the article if we receive a response.
«I don’t even know who and where the author is, because it seems like it’s some kind of collective intelligence, they’re creating a bunch of accounts there, like several of these currencies on different exchanges (I really don’t dig around much, but they already have some competition there). I don’t think anyone can help here, because they’re using Marie Rosie from Dead or Alive there, and clearly no one can do anything about it for them either, what can I do,» says the developer.
He added that he hopes that the memecoin exploiting his game will soon «bend» and crypto enthusiasts will calm down. «Most likely it will, because it is a scam and a fraud», — Salikov noted.
Currently, STONKS-9800: Stock Market Simulator costs about UAH 100 during the Steam summer sale. The game has over 1,000 positive reviews.
