Paul Grewal, Coinbases chief legal officer, has a high-powered résumé. He went to MIT, attended the University of Chicago Law School, worked at Facebook, and was once a U.S. magistrate judge.
But not even his academic pedigree and star-studded career path could save him from wading into the maelstrom of absurdity that is Pepe coin.
On Thursday, Grewal posted an apology on Twitter to Pepe lovers, saying that Coinbase, the publicly traded cryptocurrency exchange, screwed up.
We screwed up and we are sorry.
Yesterday we shared an overview of the $pepe meme coin to provide a fact-based picture of a trending topic. This did not provide the whole picture of the history of the meme and we apologize to the community.
paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal) May 11, 2023
He was referencing a newsletter Coinbase had published on Wednesday. In it, the exchange provided an overview of Pepe coin and said, correctly, that the Pepe the Frog meme has been co-opted as a hate symbol by alt-right groups, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
However, the newsletters author did not elaborate on how, since the memes co-option by hate groups in the mid-2010s, Matt Furie, the illustrator who originally created Pepe the Frog, has led a campaign to reclaim the frog from its association with hate speech. Moreover, in 2019, demonstrators in Hong Kong used the expressive amphibian as a symbol during pro-democracy protests.
Pepe lovers took umbrage at Coinbases incomplete history and launched a Twitter hashtag in response: #DeleteCoinbase.
COINBASE VS PEPE ARMY pic.twitter.com/qHEY3Q7Wxa
beeple (@beeple) May 11, 2023
[The newsletter] did not provide the whole picture of the history of the meme and we apologize to the community, Grewal said.
Coinbases chief legal officer is the latest to be sucked into Pepe coin mania. The memecoin, or cryptocurrency created as a joke, is one of the hottest on the market, and it has skyrocketed in value since its launch in mid-April.
Trading under the ticker $PEPE, it crossed a market capitalization of $1.6 billion last Friday amid the larger memecoin mania but has since tumbled to less than $600 million, according to CoinMarketCap. Despite its falling price, Pepe coin is now listed on some of the largest exchanges, including Binance and Crypto.com.
Coinbase, which has regularly touted its transparency with regulators and lawmakers, has yet to list the token on its exchange. Thats why Pepe coin boosters took Grewals apology as an opportunity to implore Coinbase to finally let its users buy Pepe coin on its platform.
$pepe is love. We are the movement. We accept your apology but now you need to do the right thing and list pepe on your platform. Prove to us youre sorry by making your actions match your words. #LISTPEPE pic.twitter.com/yGu3aT57uN
Vladdy (@VisualsVlad) May 11, 2023
Gemini, also an exchange based in the U.S., listed Pepe on its platform on Wednesday. A spokesperson for Coinbase did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its plans for listing the memecoin.
