Flog the Frog (FLOG) was one of the most hyped meme coin launches of the year due to its impressive artwork and influencer support. But its core team dumped on investors, crashing the market cap by 91% in just one minute.
Fortunately for the project, crypto users on X, formerly Twitter, have rallied behind the artist and made a new token, FWOG, which has now outshone the original meme coin.
The chaos followed a week of hype for FLOG, which launched on the Solana-based meme coin platform Pump.fun.
It immediately headed over to Solana-based automated market maker Raydium, where initial trading surpassed a $15 million market cap before settling at around $3.75 million.
Over the next few hours, however, FLOG’s market cap started to tank below $1 million, and the developers behind the project panicked.
In the chaos, a disastrous miscommunication took place between two core team members, Breezy and Pyro.
“DUMP IT,” project manager Breezy said in the team chat, which was later released by the FLOG team. “Ok,” FLOG developer Pyro replied. “Dunno like $60,000 worth,” Breezy added. “Ok, so dumping or what?” Pyro asked. “Bro, yes, I said sell,” Breezy confirmed.
In the confusion, Pyro sold the entire core team’s holdings, causing the token’s market cap to drop 91% from roughly $1.15 million to $105,000 in just one minute.
“Bro, did you sell all of it? WTF happened,” Breezy said. “Yes, you said dump my bro,” Pyro replied. “You’re a fucking idiot,” Breezy clapped back.
Crypto Twitter users with large followings are often referred to as key opinion leaders, or KOLs, and many new projects pay these people with tokens in order for them to shill the project. FLOG was able to achieve monumental hype through this tactic, Decrypt learned.
Pseudonymous crypto traders Anon and Bag of Bread claim to have been paid 3 million FLOG tokens to promote the project on their social media accounts. Anon claims “dozens” of other meme coin influencers were also involved.
“My initial reaction was not what I had missed by not selling, but frustration and remorse for sharing this with my call channel and other groups,” Anon told Decrypt via Telegram. “I put out a pretty vulnerable statement admitting, yes, I was a KOL, no, I never sold the 3 million tokens I was given, but I still feel a moral obligation to come forward and expose Breezy and the developer.”
People were certainly mad that their holdings had been gutted. But they were also upset because the meme coin artist behind the art for FLOG, Titto (also known as Groowut on Twitter), had been left in the dirt.
“Dude, I fucking almost cried,” Titto told Decrypt. “I worked 18-hour days for the past few weeks (all unpaid) to get things done, and when that happened, my heart stopped.”
Anon and another Crypto Twitter influencer, Deecayz, angry at what had happened, came up with a plan to relaunch the project. They brought Chernggg, a KOL organizer, onboard with them. Deecayz then reached out to Titto.
“I felt there was nothing to lose, I wanted to do what’s right by me to help out,” Titto explained, “I gave all the art and fell asleep.”
This was when Fwog (FWOG) was born and launched on Pump.fun. Other Crypto Twitter influencers, including Bag of Bread and Cole Thereum—the former CEO and founder of Pudgy Penguins—got on board.
“I am rarely willing to risk my reputation on a meme coin, so I hardly ever hard shill something like this,” Cole Thereum told Decrypt. “But when I found out this talented artist was getting screwed, I decided to get involved, so I bought a ton of tokens to support and shared this [community takeover] on Twitter.”
I’m interested in $fwog if the artist and CTO team can get in contact with me
I saw $flog rug and I lost a few sol but I just looked away
Few hours later I realized the devs rugged the artist and underpaid him so now I’m mad
Rug us all u want
Don’t rug artists@solfwog dm me pic.twitter.com/BXiKbKyrir
— Cole (@ColeThereum) July 30, 2024
The relaunch was a success. Nearly everyone shilling the project circled back to support an artist screwed over by the meme coin system.
“Please go give [Titto] a follow,” pseudonymous trader Minh Dynasty, CTO for the Billy meme coin project, posted on Twitter. “Thank you for these pieces, some of the best memetic art I’ve seen in a long time.”
Six hours after launch, FWOG touched a $25 million market cap as the community continued to rally behind the artist. Meanwhile, FLOG peaked around a market cap of around $900,000 but has since fallen to $96,000.
“Woke up to millions of DMs. Checked DEX Screener and I could not believe it,” Titto told Decrypt. “No one normally gives a fuck about any artists, they just assume its the team. I am very grateful for this, can’t be more happy.”
