Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
On February 2 at 12:18, a meme project named PAIN announced a 48-hour presale fundraising campaign on the X platform, where users would receive PAIN tokens based on the proportion of SOL they contributed to the total raised amount after the presale ended.
According to official disclosures, as of February 4 at 12:18 (block height 318346069), PAIN had raised a total of 185,976 SOL, approximately equivalent to 37 million USD, which is three times the amount raised by the popular presale meme project SLERF in 2024. Interestingly, although PAIN allowed ample time for players to react, there was surprisingly little promotion or mention in the Chinese-speaking community during the presale.
Currently, PAIN has not distributed tokens, and if it truly is a "golden opportunity," there may still be a chance to get in early. Odaily Planet Daily has compiled the meme history of PAIN and related clues for readers to analyze and judge for themselves.
A Meme That Has Been Popular for 14 Years
The meme image of PAIN features an elderly man with a "awkward yet polite smile." His various meme expressions have actually been popular on the traditional internet for 14 years.
The elderly man in the meme is named András István Arató, a retired electrical engineer and model from Hungary. In 2011, Arató posted travel photos taken during his vacation on social media. Due to his overall facial expression and seemingly fake smile possessing a certain natural "magic," a professional photographer invited him to model, resulting in over a hundred photos being taken. These photos quickly went viral on the internet and were humorously dubbed "Hide the Pain Harold."
Arató might have lived a quiet life, but as fate would have it (he was 66 in 2011 and is now 80), he suddenly found himself in the spotlight. With the meme's popularity, he became the spokesperson for Coca-Cola Hungary in 2019; he also ventured into the film industry, participating in the Hungarian version of The Masked Singer in 2020; and in January 2025, Arató hosted the Hungarian Athlete of the Year gala.
Entering the Crypto World with Great Momentum
According to publicly available information, Arató has a personal Facebook account, which has not yet posted or mentioned anything about PAIN.
However, there is a Twitter account using the "Hide the Pain Harold" IP, which features a tweet of Arató himself with CZ and He Yi at the Dubai Blockchain Week held by Binance in 2024. While it is unclear whether this account has Arató's authorization, it at least proves that he has been active in the crypto space, and these celebrities have potentially "endorsed" PAIN.
Even earlier, Arató had connections with the meme platform Memeland. In August 2019, he was invited to an event hosted by 9GAG, the parent company behind Memeland, in Hong Kong. When the official presale account for PAIN posted about the presale, Memeland's official Twitter also retweeted it, providing greater traffic and exposure. Therefore, some community members speculate that this PAIN presale was incubated by Memeland.
Overfunding Refund of 80%, Suspected Involvement of Well-Known Market Makers
Despite the immense influence of the "Hide the Pain Harold" meme IP on the internet and the support from crypto celebrities and teams, the total fundraising amount of 37 million USD still poses significant pressure on the potential price increase in the secondary market after the token's release.
On February 5, PAIN's official Twitter announced that at launch, 80% of the raised funds would be refunded, using only the remaining 20% to support the launch, provide liquidity, and pay for listing fees on centralized exchanges (if any). However, this excludes SOL sent via bots and from various centralized exchanges.
This news reignited interest in PAIN within the community, making it one of the largest fundraising meme projects in history and setting a record for refund amounts. Through the refunds, PAIN's valuation has dropped to around 7.4 million USD, leaving ample room for performance in the secondary market, while the 80% refund funds are likely to create buying pressure for the tokens after launch, giving presale participants a chance to achieve returns of over three times. From both a traffic effect and potential outcome perspective, this is a qualified marketing strategy.
Additionally, attentive community players have analyzed on-chain funding addresses and seemingly discovered the presence of market makers. One address received funds from market maker Wintermute and its associated wallets, subsequently making four transactions to the PAIN fundraising address totaling 1,700 SOL.
Wintermute has been quite active in meme coin market making this cycle, participating in meme coins such as SLERF, MOODENG, and ACT, and its market-making strategy is often summarized as "early unlimited price increases followed by downturns and harvesting." Regardless of the style, the involvement of market makers is still a positive sign for a newly launched PAIN.
Furthermore, according to on-chain data analyst @ai_9684xtpa, after proportional distribution of tokens, the distribution of top holders is as follows:
TOP5: 32,747 SOL contributed, holding a total of 17.6%;
TOP10: 43,242 SOL contributed, holding a total of 23.2%;
TOP20: 59,299 SOL contributed, holding a total of 31.87%.
Generally, meme coins with top 10 holdings below 30% are considered healthy, but if there are no team shares among them, it could create significant selling pressure after the token goes live. Based on the previous analysis, the release of PAIN appears to be a tightly planned initiative involving multiple parties, rather than a purely community-driven project. The project's decision to refund 80% of the funds has garnered goodwill from presale participants, but whether it will face "selling pressure" after launch remains uncertain.
NO PAIN, NO GAIN.
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