The Forgotten Trickster of Bitcoin: The Untold Story of Mitsubishi Goldstein and the Genesis of Memecoins

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September 8, 2025 — Satoshi disappeared, and Goldstein emerged. In the months after Bitcoin’s creator slipped into silence, another pseudonym took the stage: Mitsubishi Goldstein—a name as eccentric and theatrical as Satoshi Nakamoto’s own. Operating behind this mask, and others such as Laced With Kerosene and Ogashi Tukafoto, Goldstein unleashed a stream of satire, essays, and parodies that blurred the boundary between humor and foresight. He launched parody sites, authored intricate mining guides, and even conceived LOLCOIN in 2011—arguably the first memecoin, predating Dogecoin by two years. His creations often proved prophetic, foreshadowing exchange collapses, meme wars, lost fortunes, and the rise of tokenized absurdity itself. Fourteen years later, Goldstein endures as crypto’s prankster-prophet and digital ghost—every bit as enigmatic, and perhaps as influential, as Satoshi.

Comedy as Infrastructure

The summer of 2011 was chaos. Bitcoin’s price swung wildly, scams unnerved newcomers, and its absent creator left the project leaderless. What held the community together wasn’t new code but new culture. Goldstein filled the vacuum with a mix of dense mining tutorials, absurdist websites, and irreverent stunts that gave the network both structure and spirit. Sites like BitcoinMiningAccidents.com (half warning, half joke) and BitcoinAddicts.com doubled as satire and survival guides, turning confusion into cohesion. Out of this momentum came his crowning creation: LOLCOIN—a parody token not meant to mock Bitcoin but to market it. The coin embodied an early lesson that memes could spread Bitcoin’s message faster than code alone.

A Community in the Making

This was also the moment the Bitcoin community began to coalesce. When the r/Bitcoin subreddit hit 5,000 readers in under a year, a user named lolcoin—almost certainly Goldstein—marked the milestone with a post reflecting on Bitcoin’s resilience. He noted how non-technical users, women, and even skeptics who followed Bitcoin “for a laugh” were becoming real participants. His observation was clear: Bitcoin wasn’t just technology, it was becoming culture.

The Rallying Cry

Goldstein wasn’t content to entertain; he wanted action. On July 16, 2011, posting as Laced With Kerosene on BitcoinTalk.org, he issued a call to arms. Bitcoin needed success stories, not just speculation. He pointed to Meze Grill, a restaurant accepting Bitcoin, and argued the real victory would be higher sales driven by Bitcoin users themselves.

“Go out of your way and eat there,” he wrote, insisting that measurable growth would persuade more businesses. But he didn’t stop there. Goldstein warned that Bitcoin spending was being scattered across too many fragile startups. What mattered was helping established merchants scale — businesses that could turn Bitcoin into real revenue, not just a novelty. “Convincing one existing, already profitable business to accept payment in BTC,” he argued, “would be worth more than 100 bitcoin startups.”

And beyond commerce, he demanded energy. The community was stagnating, the forums felt dead, and he pushed for orchestrated stunts and entertaining spectacles that would capture attention without embarrassment. Even something as absurd as a “tattoo race,” he suggested, would do more to spread awareness than any trading bot.

His mantra tied it all together, simple, sharp, and prescient: “You are not going to get yours unless you help others get theirs.”

The Birth of Meme Money

Goldstein’s irreverence spilled onto Twitter, where the @lol_coin account proclaimed in July 2011: “Bitcoins are backed by their intrinsic comedy value, which will never go down.” Years before the rise of memecoins, he reframed Bitcoin not as fragile internet money but as a cultural force.

He promised LOLCOIN would become a real token once the account hit 100 followers. The absurd pledge only amplified the joke—especially as his tweets, from bathroom-level humor to sharp commentary, spread widely. Fourteen years later, in the summer of 2025, the follower milestone was finally hit. True to his word, LOLCOIN was minted on Solana via the Pump.fun launchpad, the epicenter of memecoins, bringing his parody to life. Today, his legacy lives on through a growing community at lolcoin.io and on X (formerly Twitter), @lol_coin_sol.

A Meme in Case Law

Goldstein’s humor often carried surprising weight. Years before cashback apps like Lolli and Fold, he floated the concept of Bitcoin rewards for shopping. His parody essay, written under the pseudonym Ogashi Tukafoto for Slacktory.com, lampooned Bitcoin mining—yet somehow found its way into academic journals and legal case studies. Institutions from the University of Chicago to the National Bank of Slovakia cited his satire, making him the rare comedian whose meme became case law.

The Frozen Fortune

Perhaps the greatest mystery surrounding Goldstein is his untouched trove of Bitcoin. A tip jar on BitcoinMiningAccidents.com received over 3,100 BTC—worth more than $350 million today. Like Satoshi’s own stash, the coins have never moved. The silence has fueled years of speculation: was Goldstein simply another early believer with incredible luck, or was he Satoshi himself, playing the role of crypto’s ultimate trickster?

The Cultural Architect

The story of Mitsubishi Goldstein and LOLCOIN is more than a curiosity. It reveals how comedy, parody, and storytelling were not distractions but central to Bitcoin’s survival. In a landscape dominated by code and economics, Goldstein proved that humor could be infrastructure, memes could be marketing, and laughter could bind a fragile community together.

Fourteen years later, as LOLCOIN finally becomes real, his legacy feels newly relevant. The forgotten trickster of Bitcoin didn’t just predict the future—he laughed it into existence.

AboutLOLCOIN — created in 2011 by the mysterious Mitsubishi Goldstein after Satoshi’s disappearance — is the genesis memecoin. What began as parody now endures as prophecy, living on as both culture and currency.

Token Address on Solana: HtrmuNs4nESVg5i8gHyufDpGN5HHKqPmFfbQV9yupump

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