A recent Coinbase newsletter caused an uproar on cryptocurrency Twitter: many users were upset by the mischaracterization of the Pepe the Frog meme as a racist tool, while others accused the exchange of promoting a highly speculative meme token. A May 10 newsletter described the rise of PEPE, a token based on the popular Pepe the Frog meme. PEPE’s value has meteorically increased in recent weeks, rising from a few hundred thousand in April to a peak of more than $1.5 billion on May 5. In less than a week, however, the token lost more than half of its value.

The PEPE community, in particular, was furious at the way the Pepe frog meme was portrayed in the newsletter as the #DeleteCoinbase trend emerged on Twitter. Coinbase has since apologized for its coverage of PEPE, saying it “screwed up.” The exchange has also said that it will be more cautious about covering meme coins in the future.

The rise of PEPE is part of a broader trend of increasing popularity of meme coins in the cryptocurrency space. In addition to the more popular PEPE token on Ethereum, the PEPE BRC-20 token is also one of the most popular assets issued via the controversial Ordinals protocol on Bitcoin.