- Rep. Brad Sherman joked about a hypothetical mongoose coin upending the crypto world.
- His jab spurred several versions of a mongoose coin trading on various platforms.
- "Bitcoin could be replaced by ether which could be replaced by doge," he said.
The Congressional hearing on crypto spurred a new meme cryptocurrency: mongoose coin.
On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee questioned six crypto leaders about the benefits and challenges of digital assets. FTX Chief Executive Officer Sam Bankman-Fried and Coinbase CEO Alesia Jeanne Haas testified at the hearing, along with the heads of Bitfury, Circle, Paxos Trust Company, and Stellar Development Foundation.
In his line of questions, Rep. Brad Sherman, a California democrat, said cryptocurrencies themselves are the No. 1 threat to crypto.
"Bitcoin could be replaced by ether which could be replaced by doge," he said. That, he said, "could be replaced by hamster coin and then there's cobra coin."
"What could mongoose coin do to crypto coin?" He joked. A Mongoose — an African animal that can get as long as 2 feet — is known for living in burrows and eating other animals, including cobra snakes.
Following his remarks, several mongoose coins started trading on platforms including Polygon, Avalanche, and Binance Smart Chain. Decrypt and Mashable first reported the news.
On Polygon and Binance Smart Chain, the supply was approximately "69,420,000," a popular meme finance number. Some of the coins saw a price surge before dropping back down.
Mongoose coin follows a long line of meme tokens. Likely the most well-known meme coin, boosted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, is dogecoin. Following dogecoin came shiba inu coin. Some, like Squid Game coin based on the Netflix hit show, have been scams.
"Will mongoose coin always have a value?" Sherman said at the hearing. "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."