There’s a lesson here: Don’t make crypto jokes with your brand.
Twelve hours after Elon Musk tweeted out a promise to “eat a Happy Meal on TV” if McDonald’s accepted dogecoin, the fast food giant replied “only if @tesla accepts grimacecoin.” It was accompanied by a purple cartoon coin featuring Grimace, its purple blob-shaped cartoon character who joins Ronald McDonald, the Hamburgler and other in ads.
I will eat a happy meal on tv if @McDonalds accepts Dogecoin
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 25, 2022
only if @tesla accepts grimacecoin https://t.co/CQrmAFelHR pic.twitter.com/to9HmYJhej
— McDonald’s (@McDonalds) January 25, 2022
Another 12 hours and there were more than a dozen real grimacecoin cryptocurrencies built on Ethereum (ETH), Binance Smart Coin (BSC), Avalanche (AVAX) listed on various unregulated decentralized exchanges (DEXs).
One of them, Coindesk reported, spiked briefly — very briefly — from $0.0007 to $2. That’s about 2,850x, or 285,000%.
There’s a temptation to write it all off as a joke in meme-happy cryptoland. After all, who’d take it seriously?
Well, that’s the thing. In crypto, lots of people. Not because they believe in it as a functional cryptocurrency, but because they’re hoping to buy before the spike ends, beating the next guy to the exit.
Which is, roughly, how you can profit from a Ponzi scheme, even if you know it’s a scam.
And bear in mind, dogecoin — the cryptocurrency that Elon Musk’s tweets have…
