Dump it: Crypto markets lose $230B since Bogdanoff twins passed away
French twin brothers Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff passed away due to COVID this week, within days of each other. They were 72 years old and beloved by crypto enthusiasts for their memeability.
But the wider public knew the eccentric brothers from their television careers, especially in France. As part of their work in entertainment, they produced and co-hosted science TV shows Temps X and Rayons X.
Igor is survived by six children. He had previously divorced French writer and historian Amélie de Bourbon Parme, who also survives him.
News services listed only Igor as a surviving family member when reporting Grichka Bogdanoff’s death.
Bogdanoff twins pamped it
The Bogdanoffs became celebrities in crypto trading thanks to a smouldering photograph of Grichka speaking on a cell phone.
User-generated captions evolved from the original “Dump it — the call that saved Europe,” evoking hidden powers and wealth of the Bogdanoff family, to simply: “Pump it.”
Ultimately, meme culturists had fun attributing any sudden change in crypto prices to the Bogdanoff twins throwing their wealth around.
The “pamp it” meme was born.
Like all great memes, it created comic conspiracy lore. Users captioned a series of Bogdanoff photographs, titling the collection “The Phone Call That Saved Europe.”
Humorous legends circulated that the Bogdanoffs, with a single phone call to their clandestine network of operatives, could influence the price of any asset in the world.
According to Igor, the “Pamp It” meme was initially created before 2012. He theorized Satoshi Nakamoto helped popularize the proto-Bogdanoff “Pump It” meme.
A decade of Bitcoin ‘experience’
Indeed, the Bogdanoff brothers leant into their crypto-infamy. In July 2021, they claimed to have contributed to Bitcoin in its formative years.
“As mathematicians, Igor and I were involved in creating part of the Bitcoin source code, especially the prediction code,” Grichka told L’Heure des Pros in an interview.
During their appearances on L’Heure des Pros and Non Stop People, the twins discussed smart contracts on Ethereum and considered launching a crypto they called Exo Coin.
Read more: [5 accurate crypto trader memes to help navigate this hellscape industry]
But Igor and Grichka became the center of academic controversy starting in 2002. Scientists accused the pair of publishing misleading papers that outlined a theory of what happened before and after the Big Bang, among other things.
That stoush came to be known as the “Bogdanoff affair.”
In the early ’80s, the twins collaborated with touchscreen inventor François Mizzi and a Japanese scientist known as Soïtchiro Shimoda.
They claimed to have extensively discussed blockchain with Shimoda and received two “old Bitcoins” from a wallet controlled by Nakamoto in 2008.
Read more: [5 accurate crypto trader memes to help navigate this hellscape industry]
But if the Bogdanoff’s did indeed receive any “old Bitcoins” in 2008, it could only have been sent from a test version of pre-production Bitcoin code. Nakamoto mined Bitcoin’s first (genesis) block on January 3, 2009.
In any case, the pair’s influence on the crypto zeitgeist cannot be understated. The memes are legendary; but if you want further proof, take a look at crypto markets since they passed on January 3.
The total value of all cryptocurrencies was just under $2.28 trillion at the time. At press time, that figure has shrunk 11% to $2.05 trillion — representing up to $228 billion in value collectively lost from crypto investors.
One final dump for the ages.
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