‘We Screwed Up’: Coinbase Apologizes for PEPE Newsletter

Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal tweeted an apology for not providing “the whole picture” of the Pepe the Frog meme

article-image

dCrypto/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Coinbase has come out with an apology for its recent newsletter suggesting Pepe the Frog was a “hate symbol.”

Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal issued the mea culpa shortly after #DeleteCoinbase trended on Twitter with hundreds of thousands of tweets, many of them from customers vowing to delete the app and close their accounts. 

Grewal wrote on Twitter, “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.”

Loading Tweet..

Grewal’s tweet had collected more than 400,000 views at the time of publication and was met with praise. One user proclaimed that PEPE had been exonerated, and another said they had deep respect for Coinbase admitting that it was wrong. 

“I very rarely see a corporation as large as Coinbase come out and flat out say ‘we got this wrong’ like this over virtue signaling & I have a deep level of respect for them & how they handled the backlash,” DeFi entrepreneur Tyler Scott Ward tweeted.

PEPE has pumped more than 2,700% in less than a month, but it’s down more than 60% since its all-time high

Other users thanked Coinbase for the apology and forgave them, but asked PEPE to be listed on the exchange (it’s currently available only through Coinbase Wallet). Binance listed the token last Friday, coinciding with record highs.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the On the Margin newsletter.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Salt Lake City, UT

MON - TUES, OCT. 7 - 8, 2024

Blockworks and Bankless in collaboration with buidlbox are excited to announce the second installment of the Permissionless Hackathon – taking place October 7-8 in Salt Lake City, Utah. We’ve partnered with buidlbox to bring together the brightest minds in crypto for […]

Salt Lake City, UT

WED - FRI, OCTOBER 9 - 11, 2024

Permissionless is a conference for founders, application developers, and users. Come meet the next generation of people building and using crypto.

recent research

Blinks Report Image.png

Research

Blinks enable the ability to vampire attack user monetization of existing networks by inserting onchain and financialized functionalities directly within the popular social feeds and digital experiences of today.

article-image

Plus, how the FTX collapse played out in Asian countries

article-image

Kalshi founder Tarek Mansour said Thursday marked the “the first trade on regulated election markets in nearly a century”

article-image

I was excited about being on the precipice of realigning societal incentives and solving many issues plaguing our modern financial world

article-image

Cypherpunk Holdings has rebranded to Sol Strategies in a pivot to a Solana-first investment approach

article-image

BitGo’s wrapped bitcoin (wBTC) has a new custodial challenger

article-image

Make no mistake: Tether makes a ton of money. But exactly how much depends a lot on the price of bitcoin.