In the weeks before he allegedly shot a Black man outside a Tennessee courthouse on Wednesday, a racist streamer known as “Chud the Builder” filmed himself walking down busy streets in and around Nashville, shouting “n—–,” “chimps” and other slurs at Black people, threatening violence if they retaliated.
In a post on X, he fantasized to his fans about how these confrontations might eventually lead him to commit justified murder.
“Series finale is dead chimp on the pavement and you monkeys rioting when I walk free,” he wrote on X. “Stay tuned.”
His fans tuned in. On Wednesday, prosecutors alleged the streamer, whose real name is Dalton Eatherly, opened fire on a Black man outside the Montgomery County Courthouse in Clarksville. His supporters rewarded him handsomely; Eagerly’s small net worth skyrocketed in the hours and days that followed, thanks in part to a crypto-based streaming platform that helped turn him into one of the internet’s most odious, dangerous and viral characters.
Eatherly streams on Pump.Fun, a platform that gives content creators their own meme coin — a form of cryptocurrency inspired by internet memes and influencers — and lets viewers pump money into the coin while they watch the creator’s livestream. The platform essentially gamifies the relationship between streamers and viewers: The more engaging and viral the content, the more likely viewers are to invest in the streamer’s meme coin.
“Meme coin creators compete for attention by doing the stupidest and most offensive things they can think of. This is the worst one I’ve ever heard of.”
Zeke Faux, author of “Numbers Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Staggering Rise and Fall.”
Eatherly’s meme coin, called $CHUD, surged in value after he scuffled with, and then allegedly shot, a Black man who confronted him. By Thursday, his coin had a market cap value of over $4 million — a misleadingly large number, experts say, because the true value of a cryptocurrency can be volatile or totally meaningless. But the spike in his coin’s value suggests there’s a market and an audience for streamed racism and violence, so long as there’s a platform willing to host it. And he has raised a significant chunk of tangible income since the shooting: $4,066 in cash from the $CHUD token, $80,000 from donors to a GiveSendGo campaign supporting his work and his 3.13% share of the $CHUD token supply, which is currently worth nearly $40,000, according to an analysis provided to MS NOW by Bubblemaps, a blockchain analytics company.
Although the meme coin phenomenon has experienced a steep decline from the height of its popularity — the president of the United States launched his own coin, $Trump, in early 2025 — the surging price of $CHUD following the shooting has raised new concerns over how platforms like Pump.Fun may be incentivizing dangerous, confrontational content, such as Eatherly’s, and the violence that follows.
“Meme coin creators compete for attention by doing the stupidest and most offensive things they can think of,” Zeke Faux, author of “Numbers Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Staggering Rise and Fall,” told MS NOW. “This is the worst one I’ve ever heard of.”
Eatherly was relatively unknown to mainstream audiences until the shooting this week, but, over the last few months, he has become a rising star in far-right spaces online, largely via viral clips from his Pump.Fun livestreams that fans posted on X. This newfound fame made him a known quantity in the Nashville area, and although details of the altercation that led to the shooting remain unclear, Eatherly’s livestreamed remarks suggest the victim knew of him beforehand.
“I had to defend myself by shooting him,” Eatherly can be heard telling first responders in a livestream he broadcast while they tended to his wounds, sustained when he reportedly shot himself in the arm accidentally. The man he shot, Eatherly said, had told him, “You start saying all that chimp out s–t to me and I’m gonna hit you.”
Witnesses told Clarksville Now that the man punched Eatherly, who then drew a gun and opened fire. The victim was later airlifted to a local hospital and is now in stable condition. Authorities did not immediately release the victim’s name or any other identifying information. A witness told The Associated Press the man was Black. Eatherly is also in stable condition.
Later on Wednesday, Eatherly was arrested and charged with attempted murder, employing a firearm during a dangerous felony, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, according to a statement from the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office. His attorney, Jake Fendley, did not immediately return a request for comment.
Eatherly, who appears on his livestreams wearing a cowboy hat, frequently accosts Black people and calls them the N-word, before daring them to “chimp out,” a phrase common in white supremacist circles used to compare Black people to monkeys. In one viral clip, a Black man can be seen responding to Eatherly’s racist provocations by knocking the cowboy hat off his head. In response, Eatherly sprays what appears to be a chemical agent, such as mace or pepper spray, at the man while shouting the N-word.
Eatherly repeatedly threatened that one day he would kill a Black person during one of his confrontations.
“The day one of you n—–s make me take your life is the day the White man takes this country back,” he wrote on X in December.
On May 7 he warned on X, “Series finale is dead chimp on the pavement and you monkeys rioting when I walk free. Stay tuned.”
Eatherly’s viral stunts and threats earned him invites onto popular far-right shows, including the now defunct Infowars, and the podcast hosted by Gavin McInnes, founder of the far-right Proud Boys street gang. In these appearances, Eatherly positioned himself as a free speech warrior, fighting to make the N-word acceptable for white people to say again.
But in a livestream on his Pump.Fun page, broadcast just two days before the shooting Wednesday, Eatherly confessed that he depends on audience engagement and funding on the platform to make a living.
“This is what pays me,” he said, explaining that he has “upcoming bills.”
“I’m not quitting the coin,” he said during the stream. “I can’t.”
He added, “People want to shoot me wherever I go. It’s fucking awkward having to hold a camera wherever I go but I have to.”
Launched in 2024, Pump.Fun quickly became the “fastest growing app in crypto history,” reporting $100 million in revenue over seven months as users rushed to profit off their own memecoins. The platform was ostensibly created with features to prevent “rug pulls,” a scam common in the meme coin world, when a coin would be hyped with great fanfare by its creator, raising its value when people rushed to buy the coin, only for the coin’s creator to then take a big cash out, causing the value of the coin to crash, leaving investors with nearly worthless tokens.
Pump.Fun was also novel for its livestreaming feature, allowing coin creators to hype the coin on the trading platform itself. The livestream feature, however, quickly became a public relations nightmare. In the crowded attention economy of the meme coin world, users were resorting to increasingly desperate measures to stand out in the crowd. As reported last year by Wired, coin creators started to perform “dangerous, sexually degrading, and potentially illegal acts,” with some users even threatening to self-harm or broadcast acts of violence.
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“To ensure the absolute safety of our users, we will be pausing the live streaming functionality on the site for an indefinite time period until the moderation infrastructure is ready to deal with the heightened levels of activity,” a notice posted to Pump.Fun’s website in November 2024 says.
It’s unclear what moderation infrastructure was implemented before the livestreaming function was reinstated. Pump.Fun did not respond to MS NOW’s request for comment on its moderation practices, or on the prospect of one of its coin creators potentially earning a payday from shooting a Black man.
It can be hard to divine what kind of profit any given meme coin creator may make. Although Eatherly’s $CHUD coin reached a “market capitalization” value of over $4 million on Pump.Fun Thursday, that is a “sort of semi-fictional number,” explained Jacob Silverman, an independent journalist and author of the new book, “Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and The Radicalization of Silicon Valley.”
That number is basically a “proxy for attention,” Silverman said.
The truth about memecoins, Silverman added, is that they have “no inherent or intrinsic value.” At this point, Pump.Fun is “just kind of monetizing violence” and “monetizing right wing memes and ideology.” The platform has become the “4Chan of memcoins and crypto,” he argued, referring to the racist far-right message board. “It’s just chaos. Everyone’s kind of a right-wing monster. Everyone is being scammed. Everyone is in on the scam.”
Eatherly’s $CHUD was launched on April 9. It reached its highest market capitalization value after the shooting, spiking to $4.4 million. According to an analysis provided to MS NOW by Bubblemaps, the blockchain analytics company, 4,601 accounts have bought Eatherly’s meme coin, although a single person can hold many separate accounts.
That number could soar again.
“If he’s a semi-competent scammer,” Silverman explained, “he will find ways to cash out. I think what it ultimately is about is building these spikes of attention, because when the attention spikes on him, then the coin price will spike too.”
Beyond Pump.Fun, Eatherly’s fans and supporters appear to have sent him over $80,000 via GiveSendGo since the shooting. Eatherly had set up a page on the crowdfunding site months earlier, saying his contracting company was struggling to stay afloat, with his “Chud the Builder” persona scaring off customers.
“I poured everything into this small business working tirelessly to provide for my family and build a future,” he pleaded. “But now, that dream is under attack. Not for the quality of my work, but for what I say online.”
Before the shooting Wednesday, Eatherly had received less than $50,000 toward a $100,000 fundraising goal. On Friday morning donations had surged to over $135,000.
“We need more men like Chud if we are to take back our country,” one anonymous donor wrote after giving Eatherly $1,500.
“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children,” another donor wrote, using the “14 Words” slogan popular among white supremacists. That donor dropped $1,488, an apparent reference to the “1488” meme, which refers both to the 14 words, and “88,” the alphanumeric code for “Heil Hitler.”
Reached for comment, GiveSendGo spokesperson Alex Shipley insisted that “we do not condone violence, hate speech, or discrimination of any kind.”
Shipley said that while the crowdfunding site understands there is “significant public concern” surrounding Eatherly’s GiveSendGo page, “the fundraiser in question does not currently violate our Terms of Service, which focus on conduct within our platform.”
Eatherly will surely be happy for the funds. According to Clarksville Now, he had gone to the courthouse on Wednesday before the shooting to appear as a defendant in a civil case. He was being sued by a company called Midland Credit Management Inc.
Christopher Mathias is a freelance reporter and MS NOW contributor. He is the author of “To Catch a Fascist: The Fight to Expose the Radical Right.”