Key Points:
Paul Grewal, chief legal officer of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, apologized for Pepecoins inaccurate reports.
Earlier, the trading platform had released reports revealing the meme coin originated from an Internet meme and was seen as a symbol of right-wing hate, causing a storm of criticism on Twitter with the hashtag #deletecoinbase.
This has caused the PEPE token to drop more than 21% in the past 24 hours and Coinbase stock to drop more than 4%.
Paul Grewal, the chief legal officer of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, tweeted that they misrepresented PEPE and apologized to the community.
According to the Coinbase newsletter, the trading volume on the meme coin surpassed $2.3 billion last week, six times higher than the previous week and the highest level since May 2021. The rise of PEPE as the leading driving force behind the coin mania is an ongoing meme. PEPE has grown by nearly 55,000% since its release in mid-April, resulting in a market capitalization of $1.8 billion in less than three weeks, making it one of the fastest-growing tokens ever.
But the Cryptocurrency Exchange caused a stir by depicting the Pepe the Frog meme as originating from an Internet meme and seen as a symbol of right-wing hate. This led to a flurry of confusion on Twitter, with the hashtag #deletecoinbase trending on Twitter in the early hours of Thursday.
“The token is based on the Pepe the Frog meme, which first surfaced on the internet nearly 20 years ago as a comic-strip character,(…). Over time it has been co-opted as a hate symbol by alt-right groups, according to the Anti-Defamation League.”The Coinbase newsletter stated.
This prompted the exchanges chief legal officer to post a tweet apologizing to the community for sharing a false introduction to PEPE, which did not accurately reflect the big picture, and Coinbase responded very sorry community. After receiving heavy criticism from the community, the report was immediately edited.
According to CoinMarketCap, PEPE has dropped more than 21% in the past 24 hours, and Coinbase stock has fallen more than 4%.