Pepe would be ashamed by PEPE investors

Death threats, viral rap videos and a series of frog-themed insults. That is the state of my social media profiles after hosting a Twitter Space on May 8 about PEPE, the new token based on the “Pepe” meme.

Poignantly presented during a Monumental collapse of the price of PEPE, Cointelegraph expounded on the May 8 Twitter space to understand the token. Why had it increased so fast? What separates PEPE from the thousands of other memecoins and dozens of other PEPE tokens? And what is the duration of these symbolic projects?

The reaction was "mockery."

"Everything Goes to Zero" $PEPE ADVICE
TURN UP THE SOUND pic.twitter.com/K8Uw1KvnSs

— OLLIESBLOG ⚡ (@olliesblog) May 9, 2023

Although we went out of our way to talk about PEPE's popularity, I ended up enduring some pretty grim, if predictable, personal results.

I've had myriad images of amphibians created for me, someone painted me a portrait of Microsoft Paint Pepe, I'm featured in a rap song, I've had over 100 insults written in my Twitter DMs, and I've been photoshopped to look weird. and wonderful. frog poses.

On top of that, one of the speakers on Twitter Space, Irina Heaver, a Dubai-based lawyer, has received personalized death threats. (She's fine, by the way.)

So what the hell is going on? How does a token barely a month old generate such high levels of bullying, toxic behavior, and uncompromising engagement?

every frog has its day

The PEPE token jumped on a $1 trillion market cap this week. The milestone meant that a meme token that is “completely worthless”, according to the PEPE website, now exceeds the gross domestic product of some countries.

Congratulations PEPE! It has shown us that even the simplest memes (with a somewhat bumpy look) past) can become multi-billion dollar success stories. It's an amphibious achievement that has presumably made somewhat "traditional" cryptocurrencies green with envy.

Related: Brian Armstrong promised me $100 worth of Bitcoin, so where is it?

As the latest ERC-20 token to amass a significant social media presence, PEPE advocates envision a peaceful and “happy” community protesting against crypto venture capitalists.

The project's Telegram group includes more than 43,000 members, a fraction of PEPE's more than 100,000 users. The idea behind the group is to be "positive" and "happy" and to "bring new people into the [crypto] industry."

Memes and fun internet culture aside, the PEPE community has also threatened to "finish my career," make death threats, and create viral EDM and rap videos of My panelists and I.

OK, now I'm selecting my favorite insults from the $pepe community as there are too many.

These are pic.twitter.com/UbuINDPZ5H

—Joe Nakamoto (@JoeNakamoto) May 8, 2023

Heaver, who joined Twitter Space midway through, has received death threats from the community. During Space, Heaver wryly said, "I'm legally predicting it's going to go down to zero."

The PEPE community did not see the irony in his prediction. Later they took doxing information related to Heaver and his credentials, peppering his profile with hateful messages and images.

Asked to comment for this column after the event, Heaver told Cointelegraph: "I refuse to comment as my family members are being threatened and I refuse to participate in such antics."

Gloomy, but so what? This is crypto. Cointelegraph and Heaver were “cheating” PEPE. It serves us to repeat that the meme token has no other purpose than entertainment.

Furthermore, PEPE is not the first challenging crypto community, nor will it be the last. I've had my fair share of "fun" with the Cardano community, and I've had some issues with toxic Bitcoin (BTC) maximalists, a subset of the broader Bitcoin community. They use acronyms like GFY (fuck you) and HFSP (have fun being poor) in their spare time.

According to a Reddit discussion, certain members of the SafeMoon crypto community remain the most toxic of all time. It plays out "like a soap opera" or a "war zone." That token is down 99% from its all-time high.

By the way, the crypto token community PEPE was kicked out of the original Pepe Reddit community, just after Reddit moderators removed the question from the subreddits: "Do you know why they buy useless tokens?" From now on, the PEPE token crypto community is now separate from the Reddit Pepe community.

Will Pepe be able to croak the Doge? Could he surpass the Shib?

Meme tokens are tokens and sometimes even cryptocurrencies derived from memes or internet culture, created for the sole purpose of profit and entertainment. dogecoin (DOGE) was the first and most recognizable of the batch, created on a whim in 2013. Dogecoin was a fork of LuckyCoin (LKY), which itself was a fork of Litecoin (LTC), which in turn was forked from Bitcoin.

There have been thousands of meme tokens since Dogecoin. Shiba Inu (shib) at one point surpassed Dogecoin in market capitalization, a big win for the dog token which lost the first woofer advantage.

PEPE believers consider that the dogs have had their day; PEPE now rules the swamp. If PEPE does a 5x, he will beat Shiba; a 10x puts it ahead of Dogecoin. Could that happen?

Well, just like the other meme tokens that have done well, PEPE benefits from:

• Unit bias: i.e. you can buy thousands of PEPE tokens for a few dollars, making buyers feel "rich".
• A fun but obviously toxic community backed by a popular native Internet meme.
• Participation and encouragement of influencers (although the PEPE community claims that influencers are not involved).
• A desire to fight and hit the man! The prevailing sentiment during the Twitter Space was that PEPE holders want to fight venture capitalists. It's a shame GameStop failed to record that narrative!

On the other hand, I am still working to discern what elevates PEPE above other meme tokens. I asked that question a couple of times during the Twitter Space. The answers go back to the "community" and the "fight" against venture capitalists. Several speakers insisted that there was no VC involvement during the token launch, but we've seen it with every meme mania.

The Ethereum contract state: "Pepe is a community-based memecoin on a mission: to make memecoins great again."

However, in the PEPE Telegram group and on the website, the community regularly dives into the dog tabs. I guess, in a way, it's a unique feature.

Related: Most Blockchain Advocates Haven't Even Used Bitcoin

Personally, what I like about the token is that it doesn't even claim to be a cryptocurrency.

It has no blockchain, roadmap, utility, or purpose except entertainment. There are no plans to make it "useful" either. Technically, it's not even a cryptocurrency, unlike DOGE, SHIB, or the other wannabe crypto dog tokens.

And this might not be so bad for the "crypto" industry. A move away from the flimsy promises of decentralized finance yield projects, algorithmic stablecoins, or the tokenization of real-world items and a shift toward good old-fashioned gambling, but with a cause, strangely feels more honest.

It's just that instead of buying casino chips, investors are buying into an alitary toad community bent on spamming social media in a desperate bid to become king of the swamp.

Pepe would be proud?

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed herein are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.