"Pump the frog!" is the newest rallying cry to ricochet around the crypto sphere as shills exhort each other to purchase a token called Pepe. Named for the cartoon frog of popular culture, the coin launched a few weeks ago and soared to a market cap of over $1.6 billion last weekend before dropping off precipitously. It's all so stupid I don't know where to begin.
For starters, Pepe coin doesn't do anything. It's a memecoin like Dogecoin or Shiba Inu and there are trillions of them in circulation, each worth tiny fractions of a penny. Its cultural significance is as muddled as the broader Pepe meme, which began as a friendly cartoon frog before it was appropriated by alt-right losers, then reappropriated into the mainstream by the artist and his allies, and later adopted by pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. In the crypto sphere, Pepe coin's significance appears to begin and end with "pump the frog."
