With the Pepe (PEPE) cryptocurrency rapidly gaining attention, it has emerged that the individual behind the coin’s associated meme was not aware of the digital asset’s existence.
In particular, Matt Furie, creator of the legendary Pepe the Frog meme, has admitted lack of knowledge about Pepe despite the token’s recent surge in popularity across the cryptocurrency space, he said in a Twitter Space on May 9.
Furie, who made the revelations during a discussion about his new non-fungible token (NFT) art collection called Zogs, did mention that he was a Dogecoin (DOGE) maximalist.
“Actually, this is the first I’ve heard of it. <…> “I’ve heard of Ethereum (ETH), and I’ve heard of Bitcoin (BTC), and I’ve heard of Dogecoin — is it a bit like that?. <…> “I’m a Dogecoin maxi,” he said.
It is currently uncertain whether Furie will seek commercial compensation from the team behind Pepecoin following his recent admission. Thus far, the artist has not pursued copyright claims against the coin’s issuers.
Furie has previously taken a firm stance against the unauthorized use of the Pepe meme. For example, he successfully forced OpenSea to remove the project Sad Frogs District, which consisted of 7,000 frog-based profile pics that had generated $7 million in trade volume due to copyright infringement.
PEPE’s spike in value
Notably, the meme coin is a community-driven effort that was initially created to bring a fun and playful perspective to the world of cryptocurrency.
Since its inception, PEPE has experienced a meteoric rise, with its value increasing by almost 5,000,000%. According to a recent report by Finbold on May 1, the coin saw a spike of about 120% in a single day, pushing PEPE to become the third-highest meme coin.
Pepe’s rapid growth can be attributed, in part, to its listing on various exchanges such as Binance. However, the recent listing on Binance has helped propel the token’s price to new heights, outperforming the broader market in gains.
As a result, PEPE’s onchain metrics have also shown impressive growth. As of May 10, data from Cryptolaxy indicated that PEPE had the highest network growth among cryptocurrencies, based on the number of new addresses that had transferred the token for the first time.
With 4,039 new addresses, PEPE ranked first, followed by GALA (GALA) with 1,392 and Siba Inu (SHIB) with 1,089.
Currently, PEPE is trading at $0.000001996, with a loss of approximately 1.5% within the past 24 hours. Despite this, it has gained 125% over the past week. The attention is now on whether the token can sustain this growth or if initial investors will begin to cash out.
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