'Dogecoin Millionaire' Is Now a Pepe Millionaire—And He’s Stacking These Meme Cash Subsequent – Decrypt

Glauber Contessoto rose to crypto fame in 2021 when he turned what was believed to be the primary “Dogecoin Millionaire”—a title he wore proudly. Now, 4 years later, he’s claimed the title of “Pepe Millionaire,” whereas his DOGE stash has dipped barely beneath that milestone stage.

Throughout six wallets shared and verified with Decrypt, Contessoto now owns roughly $1.116 million of the Ethereum meme coin PEPE.

That is along with his Dogecoin stash that he has turn out to be well-known for. Contessoto claims to personal “a bit bit over” 5 million DOGE which might put him within the ballpark of $920,000 at immediately’s worth. DOGE is down practically 12% over the past month. And sure, he nonetheless hasn’t offered any Dogecoin—regardless of saying he would.

Contessoto stated that he purchased $100,000 price of three meme cash again in spring 2024: Pepe, Brett, and Dogwifhat. Each Pepe and Brett have elevated in worth since then, to his pleasure, whereas Dogwifhat is down 82% from its all-time excessive reached throughout that interval.

Then, this February, Contessoto stated he rage-quit holding Ethereum (ETH) on account of its poor worth efficiency through the prior months, and swapped all of his tokens for Pepe. 

“[It was] a whole bunch of hundreds of {dollars},” he laughed. “I used to be like, what? Fuck it. I offered out all of my ETH, utterly offered every little thing, and put all of it into Pepe.”

With Pepe’s worth rising 36.96% because the finish of February, this was sufficient to hail Contessoto as a millionaire in his second meme coin. However, why Pepe?

“I feel Pepe might be one of many solely different memes which can be up there with Doge by way of how recognizable they’re,” Contessoto informed Decrypt. “Even when you do not know the identify Pepe, you have seen the face of Pepe. You have seen it on some discussion board someplace, in a meme on Fb, clearly on Twitter, Reddit. Pepe simply has such an iconic attain.”

Plus, he likes that Pepe is extra of an edgy meme, particularly when in comparison with his darling Dogecoin, which is rooted in family-friendly, healthful love. In spite of everything, a typical mantra amongst DOGE supporters is “Do Solely Good On a regular basis.” Finally, the Pepe Millionaire stated, the meme represents web tradition at its deepest and darkest.

Pepe the Frog was initially created by artist Matt Furie, as a part of his comedian sequence “Boy’s Membership” in 2005. However by 2016, the Anti-Defamation League added the frog to its database of hate symbols, alongside logos just like the swastika. It is because it had been adopted by the alt-right motion with anti-Semitic and racist variations of the meme spreading throughout 4chan, 8chan, and Reddit.

“Pepe isn’t alleged to symbolize that within the first place,” Contessoto stated. “They took it and did what they needed with it—however that does not make the meme itself dangerous.”

Within the 2020 documentary “Feels Good Man,” Furie makes an attempt to battle towards his work getting used as an emblem for hate by way of a string of copyright infringement lawsuits, which he largely loses. One main victory, nevertheless, was the frog getting used as an emblem for hope by pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong—which Furie liked.

“Pepe to [the whole world] is recognizable,” the Pepe Millionaire added. “You bought Pepe in all totally different languages.”

Contessoto isn’t seeking to cease there. As a substitute he needs to turn out to be a millionaire in meme cash Brett and Floki too—each of which he says he additionally invested $100,000 into. Being a meme coin millionaire throughout a number of tokens wasn’t the unique purpose, he stated, however now he’s embraced the purpose.

“It is simply sort of enjoyable,” he stated. “It’s my factor, I suppose.”

At this level, it’s solely pure to query the place the Dogecoin Millionaire is getting his capital from, particularly contemplating he by no means offered his DOGE fortunes. Contessoto defined that when he rose to crypto fame in 2021, he was making $10,000 a month on YouTube whereas additionally working a job doing voiceovers for music publication HipHopDX.

“I simply sort of took that complete momentum I had in 2021 and tried to make as a lot cash as I may,” he informed Decrypt. “With that, I had YouTube cash, I had merch cash, after which I had a variety of stuff simply with the documentary that was occurring too. I used to be getting talking engagements and we have been doing showings of the documentary at totally different areas—they paid me for that.”

Since then, he’s additionally turn out to be considerably of a social media influencer that sells sponsored posts, and has been paid to run advertising campaigns for different tasks.

Deploying capital is the straightforward half, he stated—promoting is the true problem. 

Contessoto has held onto his Dogecoin fortunes ever since his first buy, claiming to have by no means offered a single penny. Beforehand, in November, he informed Decrypt that he deliberate to begin promoting off DOGE when he believed Bitcoin was reaching its peak. 

Bitcoin has since hit a number of all-time excessive peaks, together with most lately in Could, however he nonetheless didn’t promote as he believes it nonetheless isn’t the correct time. 

Will he make the identical mistake once more and maintain his DOGE even additional beneath the $1 million mark?

“No, bro, belief me, I’ll [sell],” Contessoto asserted. “I am not going previous 2025 with out promoting no less than half of my Dogecoin. […] I am not round-tripping shit ever once more. It is not price it, man—not price it in any respect, bro.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward