rewrite this title Dogecoin Fan Elon Musk Pumps CumRocket Meme Coin—Again – Decrypt

A lot of rockets have taken off under Elon Musk’s watch, but the tech CEO and SpaceX co-founder just boosted one billed as digital ejaculate—for the second time.

The price of CumRocket (CUMMIES) had jumped 68% Friday, hovering above $0.007 a day after Musk posted a meme on X (formerly known as Twitter) bearing the obscure token’s name. 

In Musk’s post, the popular internet meme Pepe the Frog is depicted communicating with the IRS, discussing the tax implications of on-chain activity involving “cumrocket” and “NFTitties.”

Musk’s post may have referenced the IRS’s postponement of tax reporting requirements on Wednesday, a delay that affords crypto investors relief until next year. But after Musk’s post, CumRocket’s price quintupled in less than an hour, rising 429% to $0.022 from $0.004. That peak was short-lived, but CUMMIES remains up substantially from before Musk’s tweet.

Since Musk called Dogecoin his “fav cryptocurrency” back in 2019, his ability to drum up interest in assets that trade on little more than vibes has been well documented.

And while Musk’s influence has grown notably since he spent $250 million to help President-elect Donald Trump win the White House, Musk still serves as an incidental kingmaker for meme coins in the cryptosphere.

Launched on BNB Chain in 2021, a British TikToker and software engineer who goes by “Lydia” created CumRocket. Adult actresses Lacey London, Shelby Paris, and Lauren Phillips served as ambassadors for the meme coin months after its release.

CumRocket promoters have zeroed in on Musk’s posts before. In 2021, a group of enthusiasts believed Musk had endorsed the token through a string of emojis on X. At the time, CumRocket pumped as high as $0.21, before crashing to $0.07 just three days later.

On Friday, the CumRocket’s X account reiterated its love for the billionaire meme connoisseur, reprising the string of emojis that Musk had once used.

Musk’s taste in memes may move markets, and so far, that’s been scot-free.

A federal judge in Manhattan found last year that Musk’s public statements regarding Dogecoin were “aspirational and puffery,” rejecting a class-action lawsuit brought by Dogecoin investors. After an acrimonious back-and-forth, the lawsuit was dropped in November.

Sam Bankman-Fried?

When it comes to prominent CumRocket owners, FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried may have been among them. In 2023, Coinbase Product Director Conor Grogan linked the disgraced crypto mogul’s defunct hedge fund to a purchase of 950,000 CUMMIES.

The wallet linked to Bankman-Fried had purchased the CumRocket sum for $173,000 worth of BNB in June 2021, BscScan data shows. When the wallet’s CumRocket holdings were later swapped for Ethereum over a year later, the tokens were only valued around $2,200.

Grogan did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Decrypt.

CumRocket’s takeoff Thursday isn’t the first time that a meme coin has jumped on Musk’s Pepe-related posts. It’s not even the first time this week. 

The anthropomorphic amphibian, originally created by Matt Furie in 2005, inspired the launch of an $8.8 billion meme coin in 2023. Pepe (PEPE) is the third-largest meme coin by market cap, behind Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE)—the $53.8 billion meme coin that Musk has plenty of history with.

When Musk changed his X name to Kekius Maximus earlier this week, dawning “Pepe the Frog Emperor” as his profile picture, a meme coin named Kekius Maximus (KEKIUS) soared in response. The token was modeled on an image that was first posted to X on Dec. 10.

Still, the meme coin’s run was short-lived. It tanked when Musk’s profile reverted back to his actual name and face.

Edited by Andrew Hayward