Ansem, the influencer behind the dogwifhat (WIF) memecoin, admitted in a recent interview that he lied to the Las Vegas Sphere about what WIF actually is. He told the venue it was "just a dog," not crypto, to work around its blanket ban on blockchain projects.
The deception was deliberate strategy. In an interview on Market Bubble, Ansem (real name Zion Thomas) explained the logic: "So what we were trying to do to get around it, is like, oh no, it's just a dog with a hat, it's not a coin. It's just like a dog." He also explored a partnership route—pitching WIF through a clothing brand that would carry the dog design. Both approaches collapsed.
The funding trap
In March 2024, Ansem and his team raised $700,000 from the public to fund a spot on the Sphere. WIF's social media accounts posted "Officially confirmed. Viva hat vegas," then deleted it minutes later. A Sphere deal was never signed. Decrypt reported in January 2025 that no actual agreement existed.
When backlash mounted, Ansem faced a bind: he couldn't explain what he was actually trying to do without exposing the crypto angle. "We can't say what exactly we're trying to do because if we say what exactly we're trying to do, they'll know it's the coin attached to it, and then we won't be able to do it," he said. Contributors accused him of running a scam. The refund announcement arrived on April Fools' Day.
We can't say what exactly we're trying to do because if we say what exactly we're trying to do, they'll know it's the coin attached to it, and then we won't be able to do it,
WIF has shed 96% of its value since the fundraiser launch. Ansem has since issued his own token, $ANSEM, which surged over 75,000% in a week. The distribution, however, concentrated large airdrops to a small number of wallets—a pattern observers flagged as a red flag.
The sequence illustrates a recurring hazard in memecoin fundraising: opacity about what money is actually for, combined with social-media-first marketing that leaves little room for correction once claims break apart. Contributors to the WIF Sphere push had no contractual assurance the money would deliver on its stated goal. The silence Ansem maintained during the collapse—necessary, in his view, to preserve the deception—left them with no clear answers about where funds went or when they'd return.