But the Patent and Trademark Office's online database shows that Furie's trademark to Pepe the Frog, with a first use in 2005, was "abandoned" in October 2016 and is now listed as "dead." ...

The cartoonist who created Pepe the Frog has killed off the character in a rebuke to far-right extremists who transformed a benevolent internet meme into a racist, anti-Semitic symbol.

Pepe the Frog is the creation of 38-year-old cartoonist Matt Furie, who declined to be interviewed for this story. The anthropomorphic frog first appeared 12 years ago in Furie's web comic Boy's Club.

Pepe Cash, which has been around since 2016, is, itself, a Rare Pepe — though there are 701,884,009 units of Pepe Cash in circulation. The currency has a market cap of roughly $37 million.