Marmot Scientists Raise $4K on OnlyFans While Meme Coins Run Wild 🐹

UCLA researchers behind one of the world's longest-running wildlife studies have launched an OnlyFans account called OnlyMarms to help fund a project that has tracked yellow-bellied marmots in Colorado since 1962, professor Daniel Blumstein told NPR. The account, which promises subscribers "uncensored marmot content," was named by a graduate student and has so far generated about $4,000. Blumstein said the project requires between $75,000 and $100,000 a year to support graduate students and fieldwork, funding that federal grants once covered.

The researchers did not create the associated cryptocurrency tokens, according to Blumstein. "People have independently created a meme coin and told us to grab the transaction—to register it, and then we get the transaction fees. And that is blowing up," he said. "Apparently, this is a meme coin for good that people like." Several OnlyMarms-inspired meme coins have appeared on Pump.fun, though it remains unclear who created them or whether any are connected to the UCLA team.

The marmot project joins a growing list of viral animals attracting crypto attention. In 2024, the Solana token Moo Deng, based on a viral pygmy hippo, launched on Pump.fun and briefly reached a market capitalization of about $680 million before landing listings on major exchanges, including Coinbase.

Beyond OnlyFans, the researchers have partnered with a Colorado brewery on a "Marmot Tears" IPA and launched a public "Fat Marmot Week" competition to draw attention to the project. Blumstein said the unconventional fundraising reflects a broader decline in scientific support in the United States. "No. It's appalling," he said. "What we're doing is destroying the scientific structure and the university-federal partnerships that made us great, made us rich, made us the scientific leaders of the world. It's being taken apart, and that's really sad."