In summary
- Congressman Mike Collins acknowledged investing up to $30,000 in Ski Mask Dog (SKI), a memecoin that rose in value.
- Collins defended his purchase, criticizing the stigmatization of crypto technology in Washington.
- Ski Mask Dog’s purchase attracted attention on Crypto Twitter, but he was not the first politician to get involved in memecoins.
This memecoin depicts a dog in a ski balaclava, and it’s soaring to new heights because US Congressman Mike Collins (R-GA) admitted he invested up to $30,000 in it.
Collins’ purchase of Ski Mask Dog (SKI), along with another token, was flagged Tuesday by financial data platform Unusual Whales on X (formerly known as Twitter). The 57-year-old politician responded with an image of Pepe the Frog, evoking the popular internet meme that is also linked to a valuable memecoin.
But beneath the frog’s sunglasses and raised neck, Collins told Decrypt that there is 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 too long, and it’s time we start treating this industry with the respect it deserves.”
The price of Ski Mask Dog had more than doubled on Wednesday, reaching an all-time high of $0.24. Operating on Base, the Ethereum Layer 2 scaling network launched by Coinbase, SKI’s market cap had inflated beyond $200 million since Collins’ revelation became public.
Meanwhile, the price of a Cryptocurrency called Aerodrome (AERO) rose 15% to $1.81. In his statement, Collins reported that he had purchased between $1,000 and $1,500 of the asset, which is pegged to the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Base, in the last month.
According to the Ski Mask Dog website, the winter-clothed canine mascot is a “representation of the freedom to express ourselves without judgment, both online and in real life.” The digital asset is also presented as a protest against the alleged degradation of society by “powerful entities.”
Under the Ethics in Government Act, amended in 2012 to combat insider trading on Capitol Hill, House members are required to file so-called Periodic Transaction Reports (PTR). 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 cryptocurrency transactions this year, following his trading activity on Ethereum. in 2023.
In January, the elected official purchased between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of Ethereum. Months later, he bought between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of Velodrome, a token linked to an Optimism-based automated market maker (AMM), into his wallet in May.
In June, Collins’ trading activity intensified: he sold part of his Velodrome that month and acquired Aerodrome. Meanwhile, Collins sold between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of The Graph, a token tied to a data indexing project, while buying back the asset in July.
Since then, Collins has bought Aerodrome three more times, while selling a portion of his holdings in August. In October, he also bought Ethereum three times, before revealing that he had bought between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of Ski Mask Dog twice in December.
While Ethereum, Velodrome, The Graph and Aerodrome have some kind of utility, like memecoin, Ski Mask Dog is traded on speculation. According to CoinGecko, the token was launched in May and is primarily traded on Aerodrome’s DeFi platform.
Although Collins’ purchase of Ski Mask Dog drew attention on Crypto Twitter, he is not the first politician to delve into the memecoin space. In 2022, former Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) turned a profit with “Let’s Go Brandon” (LGB). The memecoin captured a coded insult against President Joe Biden, which emerged from a NASCAR event.
The U.S. House of Representatives Ethics Committee later fined Cawthorn $15,237 for undeclared purchases of LGB and promotion of memecoin. At one point, Cawthorn’s LGB holdings were valued at about $164,237, according to a House Ethics Committee report.
Memecoins may be uncommon on Capitol Hill, but Collins said they are not that unique. When asked if memecoins should be subject to unique disclosure requirements, Collins said that “memecoins should certainly be treated like any other asset, digital or otherwise.”
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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