From decrypt by André Beganski
This meme coin depicts a dog in a ski mask—and it’s jumping to new heights because U.S. Congressman Mike Collins (R-GA) acknowledged he bought as much as $30,000 of it.
Collins’ purchase of Ski Mask Dog (SKI), alongside another token, was flagged Tuesday by the financial data platform Unusual Whales on X (formerly known as Twitter). The 57-year-old replied with a picture of Pepe the Frog, evoking the popular internet meme that’s also tied to a valuable meme coin.
But beneath the frog’s shades and popped collar, Collins told Decrypt that there’s a legitimate reason behind the purchase of two digital assets.
“I liked the coins, so I bought them,” Collins said in a statement. “Washington and Wall Street have stigmatized emerging technology in the crypto ecosystem for far too long, and it’s about time that we start treating this industry with the respect it deserves.”
— Rep. Mike Collins (@RepMikeCollins) December 3, 2024
The price of Ski Mask Dog, at one point, had more than doubled Wednesday, hitting an all-time high of $0.24. Trading on Base, the Coinbase-launched Ethereum layer-2 scaling network, SKI’s market cap had ballooned beyond $200 million since Collins’ disclosure went public.
Meanwhile, the price of a cryptocurrency called Aerodrome (AERO) popped 15% to $1.81. In his disclosure, Collins’ reported that he had purchased between $1,000 and $1,500 of the asset—which is tied to the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol on Base—in the past month.
Per Ski Mask Dog’s website, the canine mascot wearing winter attire is a “representation of freedom to express ourselves without judgement, both online and in real life.” The digital asset is also billed as a protest against the supposed degradation of society by “powerful entities.”
Under the Ethics in Governments Act, amended in 2012 to combat insider trading on Capitol Hill, House members are required to file so-called Periodic Transaction Reports (PTRs). They detail securities transactions exceeding $1,000 in value in a timely manner, and while the regulatory status of most digital assets is gray, Collins has filed six PTRs covering crypto transactions this year, following his Ethereum trading activity in 2023.
In January, for example, the elected official purchased between $15,000 and $50,000 of Ethereum. Months later, he added between $1,000 and $15,000 of Velodrome, a token tied to an Optimism-based automated market maker (AMM), to his portfolio in May.
In June, Collins’ trading activity heated up: he sold some of his Velodrome that month and picked up Aerodrome. Meanwhile, Collins sold between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of The Graph, a token tied to a project for indexing data, while purchasing the asset again in July.
Since then, Collins has purchased Aerodrome three more times, while selling a portion of his holdings in August. In October, he also bought Ethereum three times, before disclosing that he had purchased between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of Ski Mask Dog twice in December.
While Ethereum, Velodrome, The Graph, and Aerodrome all feature some sort of utility, as a meme coin, Ski Mask Dog trades on little more than vibes. According to CoinGecko, the token was launched in May and it primarily trades on Aerodrome’s DeFi platform.
Though Collins’ purchase of Ski Mask Dog drew attention on Crypto Twitter, he’s not the first politician to wade into the meme coin space. In 2022, former Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) profited from “Let's Go Brandon” (LGB). The meme coin captured a coded insult against President Joe Biden, which stemmed from a NASCAR event.
The United States House Committee on Ethics later fined Cawthorn $15,237 for undisclosed LGB purchases and promoting the meme coin. At one point, Cawthorn’s LGB holdings were valued around $164,237, a House Committee ethics report found.
Meme coins may be uncommon on Capitol Hill, but Collins said they’re not all that unique. Asked about whether meme coins should be subject to unique disclosure requirements, Collins said that “meme coins should certainly be treated as any other asset, digital or otherwise.”
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