Pepe is a strange phenomenon. Pepe is the king of internet memes, with countless variations, artwork, and expressions. Pepe is a mirror that reflects ourselves. $Pepe is also a star in the cryptocurrency world, becoming the third meme coin in terms of market capitalization in just one year.
Let's explore Pepe's story right away đ
Part I: The Frog
Pepe the Frog was created by Matt Furie in 2005 in the comic series Boy's Club, posted on MySpace and published in book form. The name Pepe comes from "peepee" (pee) when in the story, Pepe often takes his pants down to his ankles to flush into the toilet. When friends asked why, Pepe replied: "It feels very good" (Feels Good Man).
Memes exist hand in hand with the internet and the cryptocurrency era. The frog meme image #PEPEâ was born before the Kabosu dog image, the origin of #DogecoinâŹâ© (2010), is a legendary meme.
Matt Furie didn't know what a meme was until Pepe became popular on the internet. In fact, the term meme was coined by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 in the book "The Selfish Gene", simply as "a unit of cultural transmission", including information, images , video and text have the ability to self-replicate and go viral.
If it weren't for Pepe's spread on the online communities 4chan and Reddit since 2008, Pepe the Frog might have been just an ordinary frog among thousands of comic book characters. In particular, on the forum, Pepe became the default icon and image. In fact, most users and memes about Pepe do not know the original Boy's Club series.
On 4chan, many anonymous users began to recreate Pepe, combining it with "Feels Good Man" to express various emotions. Pepe is then transformed into an expression of sadness, from "Feels Good Man" to "Feels Bad Man".
Part II: From Control to Uncontrolled Spiral
By 2014, on forums like 4chan, many users linked Pepe's image to h** wings, creating many related memes.
In October 2015, presidential candidate Donald Trump posted a photo of Trump Pepe (Trump Frog), considered his way of interacting with the internet meme community. From there the meme as a cultural and social symbol, began to enter real world and political events.
Until November 2016, the election ended with Trump's victory. Pepe immediately transformed into the symbol of the successful and arduous campaign.
In 2024, it is likely that #DonaldTrump will be re-elected as US president, and $PEPE will be the most influential meme cultural icon mentioned by an American president.
Part III: When Pepe the Frog Met Blockchain Technology
The combination of Pepe and cryptocurrency was actually much earlier than people imagined.
As early as September 2016, some developers combined Pepe's image with cryptocurrency, creating card-like digital collectibles, called Rare Pepe, that were issued and traded on the Counterparty platform.
Rare Pepe is actually the first NFT on Bitcoin, earlier than Ordinals and NFTs on Ethereum. In 2018, Rare Pepe created an auction record of 39,000 USD.
Currently, $PEPE is the third meme coin in terms of market capitalization, released in April 2023. Before Pepe appeared, there were many tokens named Pepe or related to Pepe on many chains different. According to statistics, the number of tokens named #pepe⥠or related to #pepecoinđž is more than Doge and Shib. Pepe is always the key to attracting attention, whether in Web2 or Web3.
For a new meme coin like Pepe, the growth potential is still enormous. No matter what happens in the market, there's no denying that Pepe is still the king of internet memes, finally achieving a commensurate status and importance in the cryptocurrency market.
Of course $PEPE will reach the 20B MCap mark in this cycle. What do you think đ«Ą
