Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Publicly Apologizes to PEPE Community

Paul Grewal issued the public apology in the wake of backlash from the PEPE community, which was triggered by a recent Coinbase newsletter.

Paul Grewal, the Chief Legal Officer of American exchange Coinbase, has publicly apologized to the PEPE community. This follows widespread backlash from PEPE investors after an emailed newsletter from the exchange linked the meme coin to an alt-right hate symbol.

“We screwed up and we’re sorry,” Grewal tweeted today. He clarified that the exchange intended to present an informative overview of the PEPE meme coin, which was based on popular topics. However, Grewal admitted that the overview failed to give an accurate depiction of the history of the Pepe frog meme. 

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

It is worth noting that Coinbase sent out a newsletter to its customers yesterday in an attempt to provide some background information on the Pepe meme, which has been a significant part of the internet culture for the past two decades. Coinbase specifically pointed out that some individuals linked to the alt-right political movement had co-opted the Pepe meme as a symbol of hatred.

The newsletter, which is still available on the Coinbase Byte platform, received negative feedback from members of the PEPE community, prompting the trend #deletecoinbase on Twitter. PEPE proponents criticized the exchange’s approach, arguing that they could have viewed the meme for what it currently represents rather than a past co-opted representation.

These criticisms led to a public apology. The apology has triggered varied reactions from the broader community, with some proponents commending the exchange for acknowledging the error. However, others insist that the exchange take down the newsletter and equally email the apology.

Despite being launched less than a month ago, PEPE has garnered investors’ interest, resulting in an active community formation. The asset has been added to the watchlists of over 98K CoinMarketCap users. In addition to a market cap of $676 million, the asset presently boasts over 107K holders. PEPE is currently trading for $0.000001593, down 14.73% in the past 24 hours.