The Dump It Meme Legacy: How the Bogdanoffs Became Crypto's Most Iconic Joke

The cryptocurrency world lost two of its most eccentric and influential cultural figures this week. Igor Bogdanoff, the twin brother of Grichka, passed away on January 3, 2022, just six days after his sibling succumbed to complications from coronavirus. Their deaths marked the end of an era for a community that had transformed the twins into something between folklore characters and philosophical symbols of market speculation.

But who exactly were the Bogdanoffs, and why did their names become synonymous with one of crypto’s most enduring memes? The answer reveals something deeper about how cryptocurrency traders view their own market—as a place where unseen forces manipulate outcomes, where retail investors always seem to be on the wrong side of trades, and where a dump it meme became a way to process that reality through humor.

Twin Legends of Crypto Culture

The Bogdanoffs weren’t cryptocurrency natives. They were French television personalities, mathematical physicists, and science communicators who built their early careers in the 1970s and 1980s as hosts of “Temps X,” a science fiction television program. The New York Times once described their on-screen personas as “science clowns”—theatrical figures who occupied an ambiguous space between legitimate scientific discussion and pure entertainment.

Their distinctive appearance—nearly identical features, prominent cheekbones, and a look that sparked endless speculation about cosmetic procedures—made them instantly recognizable. They cultivated this image deliberately, even joking that they resembled “aliens.” Whether their features were natural or surgically enhanced remained deliberately unclear, which fit perfectly with their broader philosophy of straddling the boundary between the absurd and the authentic.

By 2017, during the initial coin offering boom, the Bogdanoffs had already lived through decades of controversy. In the 1990s, they faced plagiarism allegations regarding their book “God and Science.” Around the turn of the millennium, they published scientific papers proposing radical theories about the universe’s origins—work that became the center of what became known as “the Bogdanov affair,” a contentious debate in academic circles. More recently, they faced accusations related to financial dealings. Yet none of this diminished their cultural impact; if anything, it deepened the mystique surrounding them.

The Rise of the Dump It Meme: Market Commentary Through Comedy

Then came 2017 and the explosion of cryptocurrency into mainstream consciousness. The Bogdanoffs, with their unusual appearance, theatrical manner, and already-established presence in fringe culture, became natural targets for an emerging community of digital traders seeking to process their market experiences through humor.

The dump it meme became the primary vehicle for this commentary. In its most basic form, the joke depicted Grichka on his phone, communicating with some unseen powerful figure, instructing them to “pump” or “dump” (sometimes playfully misspelled as “pomp” or “domp”) the cryptocurrency market. The underlying logic was straightforward: somehow, the Bogdanoffs were responsible for all unfavorable market movements—whenever you entered a position, they were working against you; they always seemed to be taking the opposite side of your trade.

YouTuber Bizonacci elevated this concept into high art in 2018 with a viral video titled “He Bought.” The video depicted a wojack—the stick-figure representation of an average internet user—descending into madness as the Bogdanoffs perpetually positioned themselves against his trades, ensuring his losses. The imagery was bleak yet cathartic, allowing traders to laugh at their own frustrations.

What the Meme Really Reveals About Crypto Markets

While the dump it meme operated on the surface as pure entertainment, it pointed toward something more profound about cryptocurrency trading culture. The joke seemed to acknowledge—perhaps even celebrate—the reality that crypto markets are fundamentally speculative in nature. They are driven not by utility or long-term value but by sentiment, timing, and information asymmetries.

The meme could also be read as commentary on bagholders—particularly early investors and project insiders who possess outsized influence over market dynamics. These individuals, the joke suggested, controlled price movements while ordinary traders simply reacted. There was something self-aware and tongue-in-cheek about the entire phenomenon: traders simultaneously acknowledging their own vulnerability to market forces while using humor to cope with that vulnerability.

The Bogdanoffs themselves seemed aware of this dynamic. In a July interview with the French television program “Non Stop People,” they claimed that Grichka’s image had been downloaded more than 1.3 billion times and distributed across numerous online platforms. They also made the audacious claim that they had been colleagues of Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, and that they had contributed to the network’s development. Whether taken seriously or not, these statements fit perfectly with their established pattern of making assertions that hovered somewhere between truth and provocation.

From Science to Speculation: A Complex Legacy

What made the Bogdanoffs’ integration into crypto culture so natural was the way they had always occupied liminal spaces throughout their careers. They worked in popular science but faced accusations that their science was more show than substance. They published academic papers that attracted significant criticism. They produced movies and television programs. They existed simultaneously in the legitimate and the illegitimate, the scientific and the theatrical, the serious and the absurd.

Cryptocurrency itself occupies similar liminal spaces: between currency and speculation, between technology and hype, between revolutionary potential and financial casino. The Bogdanoffs’ entire professional trajectory seemed to have been preparation for becoming the face of this contradiction. They walked the line between authentic expertise and elaborate performance so skillfully that observers could never quite determine which was which—and perhaps that was the entire point.

Farewell to Crypto’s Most Quotable Figures

Igor’s passing on January 3, 2022, followed by Grichka’s death just days earlier, left the cryptocurrency community mourning in a distinctly internet fashion. Twitter traders posted tributes featuring screenshots of dump it memes and expressions of genuine sadness. “RIP Grichka Bogdanoff, no wonder everything is dumping,” one user joked, acknowledging both the brothers’ iconic status and the ongoing market uncertainty that had made their meme so relevant.

The Bogdanoffs’ contribution to cryptocurrency culture cannot be separated from the dump it meme that came to define their legacy in digital asset trading circles. They became shorthand for the contradictions and anxieties embedded in speculative markets—the sense that invisible forces control outcomes, that individual traders are perpetually positioned against the market, and that the only reasonable response is to laugh while holding on.

Whether through their scientific work, their television careers, or their accidental role in meme culture, the Bogdanoffs had always been figures who transcended categorization. They were serious and ridiculous, legitimate and suspect, visionary and absurd. In that complexity lay their appeal to a community—cryptocurrency traders—who recognized in them a kindred spirit navigating impossible contradictions. The dump it meme that bore their names served as both eulogy and epitaph: a communal acknowledgment that in crypto, sometimes the only appropriate response to being on the wrong side of every trade is to laugh and remember the Bogdanoffs.