Wall Street Bets mourns loss of crypto-meme-famous Bogdanoff twins, who died of COVID-19

• The crypto-meme-famous Bogdanoff twins reportedly died of COVID-19 within days of each other.
• They hosted "Temps X" in the '70s and '80s and recently became a beloved retail-trader meme.

The crypto-meme-famous Bogdanoff twins reportedly died of COVID-19 just days apart.

The French newspaper Le Monde reported that Igor Bogdanoff died on Monday, six days after his brother, Grichka. Both had been hospitalized with the coronavirus on December 15.

The 72-year-old twins notably hosted the science-fiction show "Temps X" in the '70s and '80s. The BBC said that in the 1990s the twins' cheekbones, lips, and chins changed, but they denied having had cosmetic surgery. They once said they were "proud of having faces like extra-terrestrials," the BBC reported.

Their fame reached new heights with the help of internet memes.

To retail traders on Wall Street Bets, the subreddit known for its role in the GameStop trading frenzy, the Bogdanoff twins were beloved meme icons. In YouTube videos with millions of views, Grichka is depicted as an all-powerful market maker directing someone on the phone to "pump" or "dump" cryptocurrencies to the detriment of retail traders.

In a Wall Street Bets post following the deaths, a Redditor referred to the videos: "He Sold? PAHMP EET. He bought? DAHMP EET. The legendary market making Bogdanoff twins have passed away. May they rest in peace."

Other Redditors suggested the twins had "ascended onto the blockchain." Another joked, "Who is going to financially ruin me now?"

The twins went along with their meme fame, according to Cointelegraph, which found that the two had claimed in an interview that they predicted cryptocurrency in the '80s on "Temps X" and said they met bitcoin's maker, known as Satoshi Nakamoto, in the '90s.