Crypto Is Like Frog, Steve Hanke Says, Is He Trolling PEPE Meme Coin Holders?

Major economist at Johns Hopkins University and a persistent critic of Bitcoin and crypto in general, Steve Hanke, has once again taken time to bash crypto via his Twitter handle.

This time he has likened it and crypto investors to a frog and a princess that wants to kiss, expecting it to turn into a beautiful prince. No matter how you kiss that crypto-frog, though, the economist added, it will not become a prince.

Crypto is just like the princess and the frog. The only difference is that this frog isn’t turning into a prince any time soon. pic.twitter.com/d1AVwcqtix

— Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) May 4, 2023

In March this year, professor Hanke tweeted that there are three things that prove it is not a currency for him but a highly speculative asset. Those are unreliability, lack of stability and susceptibility to fraud. These factors will continue to plague Bitcoin, Hanke believes.

Did Hanke hint at PEPE?

Curiously, the comparison of crypto with a frog clicks associations with the newly emerged cryptocurrency based on the Internet meme Pepe the Frog – PEPE. It was launched in April this year and has already become a popular trend. Over the past few days, PEPE has been demonstrating massive price jumps.

Earlier today, it spiked by over 51%, according to CoinMarketCap. At the moment, PEPE is trading at $0.000001657 and shows a more than 71% surge.

“Smart Money” whales are after PEPE

Recently, PEPE surpassed the original meme coin DOGE (although based on a dog meme, unlike PEPE) in daily trading volume and scored listings on several major crypto exchanges. Rumors have it that the frog-themed meme coin support is about to be added by Coinbase too.

In the meantime, “Smart Money” wallets have begun making hunting PEPE. This data was provided by the analytics account @lookonchain. According to it, an early SHIB investor, who holds more than 92 billion Shiba Inu (and has made about $2 million on it) purchased 72.83 billion PEPE with 19 ETH worth $36,415.

This amount of PEPE is now evaluated at $95,610, per @lookonchain. Another whale, per the same source, bought nearly 2 trillion PEPE too earlier today.