Democratic representative for California Brad Sherman joked about how ridiculous a “Mongoose Coin” would be on Wednesday — and by Friday it had become a reality.
During Wednesday’s hearing on crypto at the House Financial Services Committee, Sherman spun a tale of an old woman who swallows bigger and bigger animals to eat the animals previously swallowed.
He likened this fable to cryptocurrencies dethroning each other, explaining that Bitcoin (BTC) could be unseated by Ethereum (ETH), which in turn could be displaced by Dogecoin (DOGE), and then Hamster Coin, and then Cobra Coin.
“What could Mongoose Coin do to Crypto Coin?” he asked. The African animal is of course known for eating other animals, including cobra snakes. It’s a metaphor, geddit?
Rep. @BradSherman: “The number one threat to cryptocurrency is crypto. Bitcoin could be displaced by Ether, which could be displaced by Doge which could be displaced by HamsterCoin and then there’s CobraCoin what could MongooseCoin do to CryptoCoin?” pic.twitter.com/iHbHaikpx0
— CSPAN (@cspan) December 8, 2021
Sense of humor firmly intact, the crypto community responded by minting a batch of tokens relating to the speech overnight on Avalanche (AVAX), Polygon (MATIC) and Binance Smart Chain (BSC).
The first coin that sprung into existence was Mongoose Coin ($MONG), which has a total market cap of $18.74 million with just under 3000 holders. “Named by Congress. Made by the Mongress,” states the coin’s Twitter bio.
Mongress > Congress https://t.co/Wf31q0tsrN
— Mongoose $mong $mongfi (@mongoosecoineth) December 9, 2021
In a Medium post outlining the coin’s roadmap, a spokesperson from Mongoose Coin wrote that $MONG is “A movement that captures the community’s fight against regulators, for freedom and for a common goal.”
Other iterations of Mongoose Coin have also appeared such as GOOSE, which has grown 48,287.67% over the past 24 hours, and MONG which has grown 4,301.13%. Other Moongoose-related spinoffs such as Son of Mongoose ($SOM) and Baby Mongoose (BMONGO) have also been created.
Later on in the hearing, Sherman asked: “will Mongoose Coin always have a value?”
“I don’t know. I just made it up. It’s a joke. Although I said that about Hamster Coin, and then I found out there really was a Hamster Coin. It’s not fair to compare fiat currencies’ current system to what cryptocurrencies aspire to be.”
Hamster (HAM) is indeed a real token. On Thursday, HAM had a trading volume of $113,570 at 6:30PM UTC, a few hours into the hearing. By 1:30AM UTC, the trading volume had surged by 624% to $822,139. It is down 18.6% over the last 24 hours and down 67.8% from its ATH according to CoinGecko.
Brad Sherman is running a pump and dump group from the floor of congress. https://t.co/19SuHaiQKz
— Miko Matsumura (@mikojava) December 9, 2021
Related: Crypto CEOs request Congress provide regulatory clarity at hearing on digital assets
During a Thursday interview, Sherman told Bloomberg that the crypto industry’s “self-mocking humor” is a threat to itself, and that memes only seem to inspire greed.
“How can you pay anything for a Hamster Coin, if a joke made by a bald congressman from LA at a hearing is gonna rip your Hamster Coin with its Mongoose teeth.”