Crypto traders are keeping their fingers crossed for another global pandemic amid predictions that an outbreak of hantavirus from a cruise ship could spur on a so-called “memecoin supercycle.”
X user “@jeetassassin,” who features a badge of the Solana-based crypto exchange Moonshot on their account, claimed that the hantavirus “will spark another memecoin supercycle.”
Hours later, Moonshot claimed that it had “verified” Pump Fun-created token hantavirus (HANTA), which features an AI-generated image of a virus and a rat, on its site.
Someone made a website where you can track hantavirus outbreaks
I am positioned https://t.co/FXrUrChW5L
— edward (@jeetassassin) May 7, 2026
Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik claimed that during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020, it was the year of “DeFi summer.” Now he’s proposing that the hantavirus could herald an “agentic summer.”
Indeed, various other crypto users on X have noted that memecoin traders are praying for a potential pandemic so that their hantavirus-themed crypto holdings “go 100x.”
One user noted, “memecoin traders want the world to go into a full on global pandemic so there $500 in ‘handavirus’ coin goes up.”
Another memecoin trader brandishing a Pump Fun-affiliated badge asked, “What if the Hantavirus shuts down everything and we enter a memecoin supercycle.”
pic.twitter.com/V41sdBKDqY
— Moonshot (@moonshot) May 7, 2026
The display of apathy on show from a lot of memecoin traders shows their indifference to global issues as they participate in an addictive, online lifestyle of gambling with cryptocurrencies.
As one trader put it, “If a pandemic is what it takes to bring traders & vol back then so be it.”
Another claimed that, despite not wanting a pandemic to push the world into lockdown again, “If it somehow does end up spreading and gets COVID-level exposure, crypto volume would probably go absolutely crazy.”
Sorry memecoin traders, hantavirus doesn’t spread like COVID-19
Hantavirus is the name given to a group of various viruses that are carried by rodents. In this case, the Andes hantavirus was detected on a cruise ship departing Argentina last month.
The virus is reported to have infected five passengers, and is suspected to have spread to three more. Three passengers have died as a result, and those suspected of being infected are being treated and isolated.
Despite memecoin traders’ eagerness for a global pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) has stressed that the Andes hantavirus is not as contagious as COVID-19, and that the risk to the public is low.
WHO infectious disease epidemiologist Dr. Maria van Kerkhove said at a conference today that, “This is not Covid, this is not influenza, it spreads very, very differently.”
Hantavirus latest: The UN World Health Organization (WHO) says human-to-human transmission aboard cruise ship in Atlantic Ocean cannot be ruled out, although it is rare. Seven of 147 passengers and crew have fallen ill and three have died. https://t.co/mY3ZwGQGsW pic.twitter.com/VhCVHzAvk6
— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) May 5, 2026
The health body stressed that the virus requires intimate, prolonged contact with people in order to spread.
The Andes hantavirus has spread before, but never reached pandemic status. It’s also not a new strain of virus like COVID-19 that required an international effort to produce a vaccine.
However, the hantavirus itself is still quite deadly and can cause the respiratory disease hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome which has a mortality rate of up to 50%.
