The price of PEPE is skyrocketing on Tuesday after billionaire Elon Musk changed his name on the social media platform X and changed his profile picture to an image of Pepe the Frog playing video games.
While Musk's changes on X sparked optimism for the meme coin, this is not the first time the billionaire has supported memes and imagery of Pepe the Frog on social media. Let's take a look back.
What happened: The Pepe coin, based on the famous Pepe the Frog meme, was launched in mid-April 2023 and attracted the interest of the cryptocurrency community. The number of holders rapidly increased due to the popularity and recognition of the meme.
While the first year of the Pepe coin is memorable, the second year of this cryptocurrency includes listing on Robinhood, making it easier for investors to buy. The coin reached new all-time highs in December, following many cryptocurrencies that reached new all-time highs after the 2024 presidential election.
The Pepe the Frog meme was created by artist Matt Furie. Because this meme is very popular, being used by the richest person in the world and the most followed account on X could help boost interest in cryptocurrency.
Musk changed his name to Kekius Maximus on X at the end of December 2024 while changing his profile picture to an image that appears to combine Pepe the Frog with a fighter playing video games. This move led to the creation of a new cryptocurrency meme, Kekius Maximus, while also causing the price of Pepe stock to rise over 11% in the past 24 hours at the time of writing.
Musk also tweeted that he would reach level 80 in PoE hardcore, a post related to the game Path of Exile 2 that he enjoys playing.
Kek is a term used in gaming culture often translated to lol or haha, based on translations from popular games like World of Warcraft and Starcraft. There is also the Egyptian god Kek, depicted as Pepe the Frog since the 2016 election, according to reports from Dictionary.com.
The recent name change and profile picture is not the first time Musk has used the image of Pepe the Frog on X. The billionaire has shared several Pepe-related memes throughout 2024 and responded to many Pepe memes.
On March 13, 2024, Musk used a meme featuring Pepe the Frog to explain the First and Second Amendments, according to Coinmarketcap reports. This may be the first time Musk has used the Pepe the Frog meme on X. This could be a starting point for investors wanting to buy Pepe based on Musk's potential future support.
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Investing $1,000 in PEPE: The Pepe coin traded at a high of $0.000009332 on March 13, 2024. An investment of $1,000 at that time could purchase 107,158,165.45 PEPE.
Based on the current price of $0.00002047 for PEPE at the time of writing, an investment of $1,000 would be worth $2,193.53 today. This represents a potential increase of 119.4% over the past nine months.
In comparison, the same amount of $1,000 invested in Musk's favorite cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, or the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, which tracks the S&P 500, would not perform as well.
An investment of $1,000 in Dogecoin would be worth $1,829.74 today, an increase of 83% year-over-year. An investment of $1,000 in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust would be worth $1,129.76 today, an increase of 13.0% year-over-year.
Benzinga previously shared that investing in Dogecoin in April 2019 or July 2020 when Musk famously mentioned Dogecoin in comments and posted his first meme could yield significant returns.
There is no guarantee that Musk will completely shift from the Doge meme to the Pepe meme and maintain the growth momentum of cryptocurrency, but the cryptocurrency industry is likely to watch closely in 2025.