Many industry commentators believe one of the tokens was dumped by a developer or another insider.
The past few days have seen the rise of numerous altcoins, posting mind-blowing gains. Many of them were among the not-so-popular cohort, but quickly attracted attention following these rallies.
Two of them brought immense results for a few investors. Interestingly, they share the same name but different histories.
351x Return in Hours
One of them was reported by Lookonchain. The ‘success story’ came from an entity that had spent just 11 SOL (worth approximately $960 at the time) to accumulate 158.51 million ASTEROID through three wallets. It’s worth noting that this is a Solana-based altcoin, which had just seen the light of day.
Further on-chain data shows that the entity sold almost 135 million ASTEROID tokens for $135,000 worth of SOL and still held 23.76 million coins at the time of the post. In total, this resulted in a 351x return in the span of less than 120 minutes.
This guy turned $960 into $337K in less than 2 hours — a 351x return!😱
The trader spent just 11 $SOL ($960) to buy 158.51M $ASTEROID through 3 wallets.
He then sold 134.75M $ASTEROID for 1,539 $SOL ($135K) and still holds 23.76M $ASTEROID ($202K).https://t.co/2Y7c77stw1… pic.twitter.com/mwfNa5jZYP
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) April 17, 2026
Data from GeckoTerminal shows that the most likely seller who took advantage of the price run was a developer. Most comments below Lookonchain’s report supported this narrative, with one saying that such returns are usually a “distribution event wearing a success-story costume.” Another one alleged that this was likely the owner of the coin that needed more money and sucked in retail investors with a “smart move while the market seems bullish.”
Ethereum-Based Wins
There’s a bit of confusion in the cryptocurrency community, given the existence of identically named tokens on different chains. However, Arkham noted that another trader made a fortune of their own using the ASTEROID coin built on Ethereum.
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They bought ASTEROID for 1 ETH after seeing Elon Musk’s tweet about it, and their position skyrocketed to almost $475,000 at its peak. Another one bought $1,160 worth of the altcoin and sold on the way up, generating $210,000 of profit. A third holder now sits on $370,000 after buying ASTEROID when it was created in September 2024 for $21,400.
THIS GUY TURNED 1 ETH INTO HALF A MILLION IN 3 HOURS
The first person to buy ASTEROID today only made $1,300, after selling for about 2x.
But trader 0x680 swapped 1 ETH to ASTEROID after seeing Elon’s tweet about it, and held – now he’s up $474,320 on the coin. pic.twitter.com/8Ubj0VS2vo
— Arkham (@arkham) April 17, 2026