Puffer Finance’s native token saw its price spike sharply on Oct. 14 after the liquid restaking protocol announced that token claims were now open.

The PUFFER token, which has received support from several top crypto exchanges, including Kraken, Bybit, and Bitget, rose to highs of 49 cents.

This represented a spike of more than 55% for the token just after Puffer announced the opening of token claims. Puffer Finance experienced congestion that ‘overwhelmed’ the website as rising numbers of users attempted to reclaim PUFFER tokens.

What is Puffer Finance?

PUFFER is the native governance token of Puffer Finance, a decentralized finance protocol offering yield farming and staking for its users.

The token’s role in the Puffer and UniFi, a based rollup, includes use in liquid restaking and support of actively managed services. Its integration into Puffer’s liquid restaking technology and UniFi’s AVS allows holders to earn yield and participate in the decentralized governance that manages the protocol’s treasury rewards.

Holders can stake or use PUFFER in the governance of the restaking protocol through the vePUFFER staking service.

Puffer Finance’s liquid restaking platform on Ethereum (ETH) laces it among the top protocols in terms of total value locked, with ecosystem giants such as Ether.Fi and EigenLayer leading. According to DeFiLlama data, Puffer has a TVL of over $1.4 billion.

The protocol raised $18 million during its Series A funding round in April 2024. Brevan Howard Digital and Electric Capital co-led the round, which also attracted backing from Coinbase Ventures, Lemniscap, and Franklin Templeton.

In an earlier round in August 2023, Puffer secured $5.5 million. Lemniscap and Lightspeed Faction co-led that round.

SpaceX crypto copycat tokens, not affiliated with the company, have soared past 5824% after SpaceX’s successful Starship test launch on Sunday.

On Oct. 14, prices for cryptocurrency tokens SpaceX and StarShip, have been taking off in the wake of SpaceX‘s newest megarocket Starship launch, passing its test flight last Sunday.

Although these tokens are not affiliated with Elon Musk‘s space technology company, the launch of the enormous rocket that made headlines was enough to boost the prices of these copycat tokens on different platforms.

According to data on CoinMarketCap, the PancakeSwap-powered token SPACEX saw its price skyrocket by 5824% in the past 24 hours of trading. SPACEX’s market cap currently stands at $80,800 and is selling at $0.012192 at the time of writing.

Meanwhile another token with the same name, the Solana(SOL)-powered SpaceX, soared 216% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap. At the time of writing, the token has since plummeted to 84.56%. Despite this drop, it has maintained a market cap of $16,400.

An NFT-game token that bears the same name as SpaceX’s newly launched megarocket, StarShip, also saw a brief blast-off in its price by 0,9% after the launch according to on CoinGecko. StarShip’s price now stands at $0.0215 with a market cap of $404,251.

Another token dedicated to the spaceship was also created on the Ethereum(ETH) blockchain according to CoinMarketCap, but the platforms have yet to track the token’s price fluctuations.

Based on a report from Associated Press, the 400-feet-tall Starship rocket blasted off on Oct. 13 at sunrise near the Mexican border. The rocket arced over the Gulf of Mexico, following a similar pattern as the four previous Starships that ended up being destroyed. Though, this Starship did not share that fate.

Upon returning to launch base, the rocket was successfully caught by the launch tower’s metal arms, dubbed chopsticks.

Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer of SpaceX, Elon Musk, said in an X post that the megarocket was designed with a booster that can go into reflight within an hour after its launch.

“The booster returns within ~5 minutes, so the remaining time is reloading propellant and placing a ship on top of the booster,” explained Musk.

Elon Musk has been known for his influence in the crypto sphere, despite not creating any official tokens himself. He has been an avid champion of Dogecoin, with the billionaire even supporting a space mission funded by the cryptocurrency Dogecoin that got delayed last year.

His brief posts on X have inspired double-digit gains for Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and SHIBA INU on multiple occasions.

On April 8, multiple deepfake videos of Musk scammed viewers into taking part in fake Space X giveaways on YouTube, disguised as live streams centered around the solar eclipse that was happening at that time.

Japanese investment firm Metaplanet has bought $6.7 million worth of Bitcoin, adding 108.99 BTC to their expanding cryptocurrency reserves.

On Oct. 11, Metaplanet invested ¥1 billion or equal to $6.7 million in Bitcoin(BTC) reserves. This brings the company’s holdings in cryptocurrency to 748.50 BTC, which is currently valued at $45.65 million.

This marks the Tokyo-based hotel operator turned investment firm’s third ¥1 billion investment into their Bitcoin holdings since the start of this month. Previously, the firm purchased 108.786 BTC on Oct. 7, which brought their total Bitcoin reserves to 639.50 BTC or $40.54 million based on the market prices at the time of purchase.