$MIRA Raises Millions For Rare Diseases

Advancing medical care for rare diseases requires focus, funding, and a human touch.
A heartwarming and unexpected story has captured the spirit of the holiday season. What began as a father’s plea to fund medical research for his young daughter’s rare brain tumor diagnosis quickly spiraled into a viral phenomenon, fueled by the creation of a memecoin on the Solana blockchain. Within hours, millions of dollars were raised – not through traditional donations, but through a speculative cryptocurrency market that rallied around the cause.
A Father’s Christmas Wish
Siqi Chen, a tech investor and father, posted a heartfelt message on Christmas Eve. His 5-year-old daughter, Mira, had been diagnosed with a rare brain tumor called adamantinomatous craniopharyngioma, and Chen sought funding for research led by Dr. Todd Hankinson at the University of Colorado. He set up a GoFundMe, which raised hundreds of thousands of dollars within days,. But the real story unfolded on Christmas Day when a community of memecoiners rallied in an unprecedented way.
A memecoin called $MIRA was launched by an anonymous individual to support the cause, and this person donated 40% of the supply to Chen. The token’s value soared as traders jumped in. By Thursday morning, Chen had liquidated enough of the token to donate over $1 million to Hankinson’s lab. The lab, which focuses on this rare condition affecting fewer than two in a million people annually, received its largest-ever donation.
In an amazing series of posts, Chen shows screenshots of his $MIRA holdings skyrocketing from a few thousand dollars to a few million over the course of a few hours. To enjoy this incredible story, start on this post and just keep scrolling.
The final screenshot shows a balance of almost $19 million.
Of course, the tokens could not be converted to cash all at once since selling so much of the circulating supply would crash their price. Chen thus took precautions to sell his holdings incrementally, avoiding a rapid devaluation and emphasizing his commitment to using the funds for research.
Dr. Hankinson weighed in with a video expressing gratitude for all that transpired.
Turning Gratitude Into Action
Chen’s latest update underscores his commitment to transparency and his deep gratitude for the unexpected success of $MIRA. Some critics have begun lamenting the windfall that benefitted a few early traders. Chen framed their gains as a crucial part of the process, noting that their participation helped turn an ambitious $200,000 fundraising goal into over $1 million for rare disease research. His focus, he emphasized, is solely on providing maximum funding to Hankinson Lab to advance treatments for the rare brain tumor afflicting his daughter.
Because the internet is, well, the internet, conspiracy theories have flourished suggesting Chen orchestrated the token’s launch and that he is financially benefitting from it. Chen clarified his limited engagement with crypto prior to this event. His professional life revolves around running Runway, a non-crypto finance software startup, and supporting his daughter’s medical needs. The idea that he could have masterminded the project, he said, was “wildly unbelievable.”
Looking ahead, Chen laid out a straightforward plan for liquidating $MIRA tokens in a predictable and transparent manner. He will sell $1,000 worth of the coin every ten minutes, ensuring proceeds continue to flow steadily to the lab while minimizing market disruption.
For Chen, the outcome is already a triumph: a surge of generosity has made a tangible impact in the fight against rare diseases. Memecoins are rightly derided as speculative gimmicks, because they usually are. As $MIRA’s value peaked and fell, some traders profited while others lost money. However, even for this bitcoin maximalist, it’s hard not to call this episode of Christmas magic what it is – a use case for crypto that did a lot of good.
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