Tattooed meme ticker nets Tamil Nadu man ~$17,500 after memecoin

Arivu, a man from Tamil Nadu, tattooed the misspelled meme-coin ticker “$boutywork” on his forehead after accepting a Pump.fun GO marketplace bounty that offered 40 SOL. He filmed the tattoo at a local shop, including visible bleeding, and uploaded the video as proof on June 6. The payout did not clear after he posted the evidence.

Pump.fun launched its GO bounty marketplace on June 4. One listing offered 40 SOL to anyone who tattooed “$boutywork” on their forehead. Critics flagged a likely typo, arguing the intended ticker included an “n” to read “$Bountywork”. Arivu maintains he inked the exact text shown in the listing.

While Pump.fun moderators reviewed the submission, members of the Solana trading community created a token named BOUTYWORK on the platform and used Arivu’s selfie as the token logo. The memecoin reached an estimated market capitalization of about $373,000 within hours of its launch.

Revenue from the newly minted token flowed back to Arivu through Pump.fun’s creator fee mechanics. Public estimates show roughly $15,000 in creator fees were routed to him, with total estimated proceeds around $17,500. The original unpaid bounty remains the equivalent of about $2,585, using a SOL price of $64.62 at the time of reporting for the 40 SOL reward.

Pump.fun moderators are now reviewing whether the listing’s spelling meets the site’s payout requirements. The platform has faced criticism over controversial bounties since GO launched and is running a $350 million buyback program for its native token, PUMP.